A Solo For The Living
by Tango1
Summary: The first kiss turned a ghost into a man. The second turned a girl into a woman. Two kisses, a ring, a backward glance: on such things do lives turn. In the real world outside the opera, two people struggle against themselves. EC, RC angst . WIP.
1. Only Almost Here

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**A SOLO FOR THE LIVING**

**Disclaimer:** The usual. None of the familiar characters belong to me, and sadly enough, neither does Paris of the 19th century. Historical figures, including Napoleon III, are also not mine. Characters are based on the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical and/or the 2004 film. One quote adapted (changed) from the novel by Leroux.

**A word about historical accuracy: **When I write, I research the setting first, because characters, like real people, must be the products of their surroundings. For this reason, I have tried to ensure that details of everyday life and the political elements are faithful to the period. This includes things like locations, dates of known events, biographical details of historical figures, prices, clothing, the appearance of the streets, the names of threatres and other establishments, etc. In general, my descriptions are based on maps, photos, paintings and other appropriate sources. I do not, however, pretend to be writing a scholarly historical novel, and some liberties could be taken for the sake of the story.

**Acknowledgements:** A huge thankyou to LadyKate for beta-reading this and for providing invaluable honest opinions and moral support. Many, many thanks to Tali for the late night debates on the finer points of "Phantom" and for continuing to be so supportive of this fic – and for agreeing with me! And thanks to Carly for her feedback and to everyone else who asked to see this story despite not being a fan of "Phantom": I am really honoured and I hope you enjoy it.

**Rating:** Largely PG13 (T) for sensuality and occasional coarse language, but some later chapters have adult themes, sexual situations and violence. All chapters where M rating applies are marked appropriately.

**Summary:** The first kiss turned a ghost into a man. The second turned a girl into a woman. Two kisses, a ring, a backward glance: on such things do lives turn. In the real world outside the opera, two people struggle against themselves.

**Author's Note:** The 2004 film was set in 1870, which just happens to be the _one_ year in the late 19th century when this story could not possibly have taken place: far from holding a masquerade on the New Year's Eve of 1871, the populace of Paris was under siege by the Prussian army. So, for the purposes of this story, I will set the events of "Phantom" back a year to 1869.

We open, therefore, after the fire of the Opéra Populaire, in May 1870, in the last few months of Napoleon III's Empire.

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_To say 'I love you' one must know first how to say the 'I'. _–Ayn Rand 

**Chapter 1 – Only Almost Here**

It was raining in Paris. The black asphalt of the grand boulevards ran silver with light, so that it seemed the entire evening was reflected and continued underground: the gaily lit _cafés-chantants_ with their bawdy songs, the carriages, the restaurants, social clubs, theatres, and the people, everywhere the people... They crowded under awnings and roofs to escape the rain, stood smoking in the dimly lit foyers or pressed shoulder-to-shoulder in packed salons. Paris was what it was; a party in full swing, cheerfully abandoning itself to the din, the glitter, the charming madness of champagne, absinthe and spring.

In the rue le Peletier, there was a gap among the brilliantly lit buildings, a black hole where the missing tooth of the Opéra Populaire now stood empty and silent. Soot streaked down its wet façade. A mere week after the disaster, it appeared ancient and entirely abandoned, its windows boarded up, its singers gone, its audience amusing itself in other theatres and in other ways. Parisian gossip, always fickle, had died down almost before the fire itself, the initial hysteria turning to fascination by the following morning, and to boredom within the week. A few makeshift booths had been run up outside, and during the day hawkers still stood there, selling bits of scenery and more fragments of the infamous chandelier than even the Opéra Populaire could have reasonably possessed ("For you, monsieur, just ten centimes!"). By now, only the most naïve English and American tourists bought the trinkets; savvy Parisians had long since declared the building an eyesore, and the fire old news.

"Life continues," said a well-dressed gentleman to the young woman beside him.

The two of them stood arm in arm in front of the building, in the rain, without cloaks or umbrellas. Passing strangers hurrying to their carriages cast curious glances in their direction. The young man went on, slowly shaking his head:

"A week ago I thought the world would end. But it's just the same as always. Well, except for..." He gestured wordlessly at the dark building.

"Yes." The girl bit her lip, staring. "Almost the same. It's just been turned inside out... The darkness is on the outside, now."

She soothed away his worried glance with a small, apologetic smile. "But we should get out of the rain. I swore to Meg I would be careful with this dress."

"Oh!" he exclaimed, shame-faced. "You're cold, of course – forgive me. I should not have brought us here. Georges!" The last was addressed to the coachman behind them, who hurried to open the door. "Mademoiselle Daaé wishes to go home now."

"Yes, monsieur."

The gentleman extended a hand to help the young woman into his carriage. He winced as she carefully held the skirts of her gown clear of the gutter. "Meg's dress... Oh, Christine. I would buy you a thousand new dresses if you would only let me."

One corner of the girl's mouth lifted higher, turning her smile wry. "And Madame Giry would shame me at once into giving them all back. We are not yet married, Raoul."

"Don't remind me," he said ruefully, settling on the seat beside her. "Our 'secret engagement'. After everything we've been through..."

"Not so secret now." She pulled off her gloves, then rested her head on his shoulder, wet dark curls escaping their pins.

Georges, a big quiet man, closed the carriage door behind them with surprising gentleness, and a moment later there was a slight jolt as they moved off. The ruin of the Opéra disappeared among the lights.

"Let me take you away, Christine. For both our sakes. We'll start everything again, away from this wreck, away from Paris and its ghosts. We'll have a house by the sea, just like the old one. You'll laugh again. We'll be free, you and I."

She lifted her head to meet his serious, pleading eyes.

"I don't think so. You see, it's too late... Maybe it's true that only children are free. But perhaps – we can be happy?"

Raoul took her in his arms then, holding her tightly, nestling his face in her damp curls. They held on to one another like this, two children caught in a storm so many years ago, buffeted by the wind.

"Tell me we'll be happy, Christine."

"Oh yes, Raoul. Very happy."

He felt her grip his arms, and kissed her mouth, tasting salt, tasting rain. He held her, this girl he had loved since they were children, this woman he did not know at all, and for a while he could believe that he had managed to save her after all. But in his mind's treacherous memory, he saw her eyes closing for another man's dark music, and in the pure warmth of her kiss he fancied the aching, desperate, shattering passion he had seen once and could never forget.

"I love you!" he whispered, crushing her against him helplessly, "I love you, I love you, I love you..."

When at last they separated, they sat in silence for a long while, jolted by the movement of the carriage.

Outside was the noise of the hoofbeats and wheels, Parisian traffic and the crowds of night revellers. A burst of music came from somewhere where a door had been opened and shut. The rain had stopped and only the occasional tree showered their window with fat heavy droplets as they drove past.

"We're nearly there," Raoul said inconsequentially, peering into the window.

Christine turned to him with another of her wry half-smiles, her lips still swollen with their kiss. Raoul thought there was something heartbreakingly grown-up in that sadness and self-irony.

"Yes," she said. "Life continues."

o o o

The glass shopfront of the _café-boulangerie_ boasted exquisite plaster promises of bread loaves, baguettes and other delights, which were fully realised within, filling the shop with the delicious aroma of fresh bread and steaming chocolate. The décor, all Louis XV-style cupids, gilt mouldings, heavy mirrors and crystal, had until recently reflected the boulangerie's proximity to the Opéra Populaire, like a conveniently located shadow of the theatre, enticing hungry patrons and hungrier ballet girls inside.

Now, with the Opéra across the road a dead hulk and the patrons and ballet girls all gone, the boulangerie seemed suddenly orphaned, a lost child overdressed in velvet and gold.

"Business is terrible, Madame Giry, just terrible!" complained the elderly shopkeeper, a neat, white-haired man by the name of Monsieur Antoine. "And it will only get worse, for you know it will take them months to repair the Opéra, indeed, months – and in that time what shall I do? Look, a Friday, and scarcely a soul in sight, not even a skinny ballet girl sneaking out for her chocolate..."

He broke off abruptly, darting an embarrassed look at the unamused face of the ballet mistress.

"That is – ahem. Yes. Well. Here we are then. Half a dozen croissants."

He put the carefully paper-wrapped parcel on the marble counter and slid it towards Madame Giry. "Will that be all for today?"

Madame Giry added the parcel to the rest of the purchases in her carry-bag.

"Yes, Monsieur Antoine, thank you."

"Very good, madame. That comes to1 fr. 20 – I shall put that on your account, shall I?"

"Please. And..." She paused. "I regret to ask this, but would you be so kind as to calculate the total I owe you and forward the bill to this address?" She put a slip of paper on the counter.

Monsieur Antoine reached for his little folding spectacles to examine it.

"You are moving away? Not you too, Madame Giry..."

"I am sorry to add to your business troubles, Monsieur Antoine. But my apartment within the Opéra..."

She looked briefly over her shoulder, as though checking that the building was really ruined. It still stood black and silent in the night, framed by the cupids in the rain-speckled glass of the shopfront.

"I'm afraid you are right; it will likely be many months before the Opéra is repaired. Perhaps longer. I must find new employment."

Monsieur Antoine took off his spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly.

"Yes, of course. I'm sorry. It must not be easy for you either, Madame Giry."

"No indeed, monsieur. Nor for any of us."

Monsieur Antoine carefully folded the slip of paper with her address and put it in his pocket. Then he gave Madame Giry a bright smile and clapped his hands on the counter – "Right! Well then, let me give you a little something in farewell, for young Marguerite. I think I have some of her favourite... where were they... with slivered almonds..."

He busied himself looking through the shelves in one of the displays.

"Really, monsieur," Madame Giry tried, "it is not necessary, Meg mustn't..."

"Nonsense, I insist. Ah! Here we are."

He lifted out one of the pastry trays, where a dozen plump almond rolls had been arranged in a cascade. He looked at the tray in puzzlement. There were only three left.

"But I have not yet sold... I don't understand. I put them right there, and then you came in, and now... There were twelve just a moment ago!"

Madame Giry's mouth quirked. "Perhaps it was a ghost?"

"A hungry ghost, it seems." Monsieur Antoine gave the tray a last bemused frown, then sighed. "Perhaps just three then. It seems I am getting forgetful in my old age."

He wrapped the rolls quickly in some paper, ignoring Madame Giry's protestations, and passed the package to her. After a moment, she took it, adding it to the others in her bag.

"Thank you. I do promise to stop by when I am in the area again."

"I look forward to it, madame. _Au revoir_, and," he gave a friendly nod in the general direction of huge city outside. "_Bonne chance_?"

"And to you, Monsieur Antoine." She smiled. "The best of luck."

o o o

The rain had continued through most of the evening. Behind the Opéra Populaire, the heap of ruined scenery had turned to a soggy mess of burnt wood, and the intricately painted backgrounds had melted together into a clump of glutinous, multicoloured papier-mâché. The acidic stench of wet charcoal rose from the pile.

No doubt there was some divine symbolism in all this, Erik reflected bitterly, as he tried in vain to find a relatively dry corner where he could eat the stolen bread. He ended up with his back wedged between the soot-blackened wall of the opera house and the piled scenery. The roll was almost fresh, full of almonds and very white, and he bit into it hungrily, tearing chunks off and finally just stuffing the rest into his mouth, hunger getting the best of all his worthless, theatrical manners. _Bravo, monsieur_, he congratulated himself contemptuously. _You may now add 'thief' to your repertoire of accomplishments._ He would have laughed, but for the hunger.

Yet hunger was a friend, and it was the rain that had been the hardest to bear: the relentless torture of droplets needling him, utterly outside his control. Underground, the water had obeyed him; now he was powerless against it, powerless against everything. The rain had coursed down his face, finding the valleys and ridges of the distorted half of his skull, as shockingly intimate as a caress. _No return... _He had clawed at his face at first, tried to hide, could barely resist crawling back into the half-collapsed tunnels of the Opéra. For two days, he had done little save fight the rain, and himself. On the third, hunger had forced him back into the shell of his sanity. It would not be denied; and finally, exhausted by the struggle, Erik had felt himself acquiesce. He looked up at the sky for the first time and, standing strung out like a violin string, trembling with tension, had allowed the rain to explore the ravaged contours of his face, caressing both sides of it with Christine's delicate fingers, gently coaxing open his mouth to explore inside.

After that, he had stolen bread, meat, anything to survive.

Yes, he thought when the bread was gone. There was definitely something symbolic about this cold, wet, miserable night, where all the used-up and useless scenery was melting away, bleeding colour into the gutter. A few sets, a prop table with a missing leg, a singed page of music, half a wig. And an opera ghost, who was only a hungry man with half a face.

And, if Christine was to be believed, half a soul...

Despair crashed over him anew and Erik fed it maliciously, opening himself to the pain, repeating, Christine, Christine, Christine, thinking of the pity and revulsion in her face as he dragged her down, down, always down. Her arms had been fragile porcelain in his grip, and he had thought this made her weak but it was the other way around, oh Christine... _It is not your face_, she had said and looked squarely at him, the way nobody, nobody had ever done. Not your face. Your soul.

How had she done it? She had seen not the aberration of his face, but the fatal flaw in his reasoning, the role that had been playing him: the Phantom of the Opera inside his mind... And somehow, she had found what remained of _him_ on the edges of his madness and collected those pitiful shards to give them back as one terrible whole. He looked down at his hand, opening his palm to the light. The ring was still there, it alone sparkling in all the filth.

Christine had made him a man.

Damn her.

He wanted to hate her for it, to break these bonds she had bound him with. The Phantom would have killed her and her lover both, easily! But... But she had killed the Phantom instead, with her bare hands against his distorted flesh.

_I am not an angel, nor a demon, nor a ghost. I am Erik!_

He hunched his shoulders over the damned ring, grit his teeth, shaking soundlessly, swaying back and forth. Loathing himself, loathing her, cursing her, loving her... Christine...

There was a crash, and a swathe of water drenched him suddenly from head to foot. He jerked up, gasping, momentarily disoriented.

"Stop!" yelled a voice from the road, "Stop, curse you!"

The wheels of an omnibus skidded on the road some way ahead of him as someone finally brought the horses to a halt. There was the angry sound of an argument. Erik tried to struggle to his feet, but his knees had locked up with the cold; the wall was at his back and there was nowhere to go. Futile anger gripped him: to have eluded the mob all this time only to be found like this among the burnt scenery, unarmed and stripped of his theatre and all his masks! He didn't want to die, not like this, not without dignity.

But to his surprise, there was only one set of footsteps, clicking quickly towards him. A woman's gait.


	2. Life Continues

A big huge thankyou to everyone who has reviewed the previous chapter, and a separate thankyou to those who have decided to follow the progress of this story by adding it to favourites or in any other fashion. I hope you continue to enjoy it!

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**Chapter 2 – Life Continues**

They regarded each other in silence, the disfigured man and the thin, black-clad woman. The only sounds were the monotonous drip of water off the walls and the wet scenery, and the gurgle of the gutter.

At length, Madame Giry spoke.

"So, Monsieur Opera Ghost. We meet again."

Erik glared up at her resentfully. He made an angry flourish at the ruined half of his face. "A ghost no longer, madame. As you no doubt see."

"Ah. Then you prefer a different title now..." Here she removed something from her bag and showed it to him. "The Phantom of the Bakery, perhaps?"

Erik made a low growl in the back of his throat, lashing out at her mocking hand, but she merely took a step back, holding the bread away from him.

"You mock me!"

"I do."

Erik struggled to his feet. "I assure you, madame, if you have come here to jeer at my humiliation—"

"You will kill me, too?"

Something in Madame Giry's face made him stand still.

"I have never believed that humiliation is anything to jeer at," she said. "Perhaps you have forgotten."

Her words were very quiet, but Erik suddenly felt much as an insect must feel, pinned to a board. Long-buried images tried to surface in his memory, and it took all his strength to hold them back: flashes of a whip, a gypsy man, straw, a sack over his head, the music box knocked from the fingers of 'the Devil's Child! Come and see, the Devil's Child!'...And the girl in a patched ballet frock, who took him by the hand and helped him flee.

"You little fool."

Erik stared. "What did you say?"

"You fool!" Madame Giry's eyes flashed. "You ten kinds of fool! I have spent years mourning your fate, shielding you, fearing you, justifying – but no. No! Do you understand? You threw away every kindness, every chance of life at you own vengeful, miserable self-pity!"

"You dare—"

"_Tais-toi!_ How dare _you_ snivel when poor Carlotta is weeping for her lost lover, when Joseph Buquet is dead! When all of us, every singer, every actor, have had our lives upended and our livelihood destroyed! Murderer!"

"The world..." Erik gasped.

"Oh, don't give me that – _merde_! You have seen cruelty, yes, terrible cruelty – but you would have seen compassion too, and goodness, if you had but looked."

She paused, breathing hard. A few strands of hair had come loose from her braid, and she raised her hands and fell silent, impossibly, taking the time to pin her hair back in place. Erik could only watch.

When she resumed her tirade, she kept one hand up in the air for a moment, showing him, then dropped it to her side.

"I am done holding my hands at the level of my eyes, monsieur. From now on, I will look well to see where I am going. I advise you to do the same."

"Indeed." Erik found he had regained the faculty of speech, though not the use of his though not the use of his legs, which were shaking madly. "And how, pray, am I to do that? I am a murderer, madame. And a fool. As you have so ... eloquently pointed out."

"Yes. You are that. You are also homeless, filthy, and living on food which, I daresay, will do nothing more than let you die fat. If you intend to live, I suggest you find a residence other than this gutter."

Erik gave a short, disbelieving laugh. "I seem to have burned down my opera house. Where would you have me go?"

He had expected another lashing of her vicious sarcasm. Instead, she reached into her purse and held something out to him. It was a small card.

"You have skills, monsieur, which is more than can be said of a lot of other architects in this city. Skills which, to some, will quite outweigh the eccentricity of hiring a man with a scar over half his face."

She held out the card. "I know this gentleman. He will not see your face, or your wretched state, when he sees your sketches."

Erik tried to snatch the card from her, but found to his dismay that his hands were shaking as badly as his legs. He nearly dropped it into the mud before Madame Giry placed it securely into his palm.

The engraved writing read: "M. Jean-Marie Duchamp and Associates. Architects. 2, rue de la Sorbonne."

"I will let him know to expect you."

He could laugh in her face.

He could trample this ludicrous card into the mud, open his mind again to the dark music of the opera tunnels and fly home, shadow-like, to the prison where he belonged. Back to the sweet darkness that waited for him, called to him, caressed his mind with a hundred burning tongues...

He was on the edge, the no-man's-land between the abyss of the Opéra and the terror of the world.

And once again, a girl in a patched ballet frock was holding out her hand.

After a long time, he forced his mouth to form the unfamiliar words. "My thanks."

Madame Giry's mouth thinned. "Do not think me kind, Monsieur. You have scorned my kindness and scattered it to the wind, I have none left. But as God is my witness, I helped you once, and now your sins are mine also: You have made me a murderer. I cannot forgive you. I can scarce live with myself. But if you should live to find your honour... Well. Perhaps you may redeem us both."

Wordlessly, acting on some bizarre impulse, Erik opened his other hand and held it out to her, palm up. In the yellow light of the gas streetlamps, the ring sparkled like tears.

Madame Giry looked down at it, then back at him.

"You did not steal that."

"No," he muttered.

Had he wanted her to scream again? To faint? To take it away from him, his one prized possession, and thus prove herself as much a monster as the rest of the world? He did not know, so he could only stand there, holding the ring and her damned card.

"Then I believe it is yours," she said at last. "It is well; we all need something to keep safe. _Au revoir_, child."

She turned around, picked up her bags, and walked away unhurriedly, with the graceful, controlled step of a former ballerina. Erik watched her retreating back until she disappeared around a corner, and only then noticed the small bag at his feet.

She had left him the bread, after all.

He opened the bag. There was something else there, too.

o o o

"_Maman_!" Meg exclaimed, jumping from the divan to run to her mother's side when she heard the front door. "We've been worried, you have been gone so long! Even Christine returned hours ago. Let me help you with that." She took the damp carry-bag from Madame Giry and, unable to resist, peered curiously inside.

"Thank you, my dear."

Madame Giry unbuttoned her coat, shook the rainwater off it, and threw it over her arm while she searched for her house-shoes.

"I'm sorry to have worried you; I was obliged to spend some time ... looking up an old acquaintance. Incidentally," she smiled slightly, "Monsieur Antoine at the boulangerie asked me to convey his regards. And his entirely inappropriate treats."

She nodded at the topmost package in the bag Meg was holding. Meg unwrapped it at once, delighted.

"Almond rolls!"

"Unfortunately, yes. Two. Do remember to share with Christine, they are equally unsuitable for her. You said she is back?"

"I am, Madame Giry."

Both of them turned to see Christine walk into the dining-room, carrying a coffee pot and a tray with a light supper of bread, cheese and cold cuts. She set them carefully on the table, before going to embrace Madame Giry.

Madame Giry patted her back lightly. "There, my dear. You needn't have worried. I was hardly going to join the next Montmartre riots."

Meg and Christine exchanged a grin at the image of Madame Giry waving a fist and shouting about the freedom of workers, or whatever it was the occasional riots they heard of seemed to be about. When Meg went to unpack the purchases, Christine sobered, remembering what she had been about to say:

"Monsieur Gaillard stopped by earlier. About the rent. He was very polite."

"But insistent?" Madame Giry waited while Christine poured the coffee. It was black and rich, the way they always had it at the Opéra, and it made the small room come alive with the comfort of home.

"Yes. He chattered endlessly about rising maintenance costs. He doesn't want us practicing in the apartment, either: it seems the family on the ground floor have been complaining about us 'thumping on their heads'. And they don't like the piano."

Madame Giry closed her eyes briefly, then shook her head and took another sip. "Where would he have you practice?"

Christine rolled her eyes. "He suggests the courtyard."

"Yes, on top of the carriages!" Meg put in, coming back and throwing herself into her chair. "I think he believes ballet to be a form of the can-can, _maman_."

"Well. We shall have to talk with the neighbours."

"It will not be so bad," said Meg, "if they take on Christine and me at the _Variétés_. Blanche says they have been short of dancers all season."

Madame Giry looked up at in surprise, her gaze going from her daughter to Christine. "What happened with the _Opéra Comique_? You have heard from them, so soon?"

Christine studied her hands, wrapped around the cup in the way she had done when she was a child. "They didn't want me," she said in a small voice.

"Didn't want you!" Madame Giry frankly stared in shock. "Good God, whyever not? They have all heard you sing!"

Christine stiffened her shoulders. "They have also heard other things about me, Madame Giry. The whole affair with," she faltered, "with the Phantom, and my role in _Don Juan_. They think I might be more trouble than I'm worth."

"They think she had a hand in it," Meg explained. "Since all the things that happened served to advance her career... No doubt Carlotta and Piangi's friends helped fan the rumours that Christine was the Ghost's, uh... His paramour, or co-conspirator. Or both. At any rate, it seems they don't wish to take the chance."

"What chance?" Madame Giry asked in astonishment. "That _Christine Daaé_ is a murdering lunatic?"

Christine gave a humourless grin. "I would not be the first diva with more ambition than talent. And besides." She looked up, her brown eyes huge and childlike in the candlelight. "Perhaps I am responsible for the disaster. In part. It was because of my voice that ... that some of those things happened."

"Christine..." Meg squeezed her hand quickly, "You can't blame yourself for – for existing!"

"Enough of this." Madame Giry said firmly. She set down her empty cup and rose from her chair. "I will sort out this dreadful mess tomorrow. It is late; please be so good as to take all the tea things to the kitchen and go straight to bed. Both of you."

"No, Madame Giry, please." Christine looked at her imploringly. "Do not trouble yourself, it will be no use. Really, I would rather dance. The _Variétés_ will pay both of us well."

"You would rather dance than sing?" Madame Giry frowned. "Are you certain, my dear?"

Christine bowed her head. "I'm certain."

"And what does your fiancé think of this notion? You could continue singing when you are wed, but the ballet..."

Christine looked up, biting her lip, and shrugged. "I am not married yet."

Madame Giry gave her a shrewd look, but said only, "Very well. Good night, Christine. Good night, Meg."

"Good night, _maman_."

Madame Giry took a candle and headed towards her dressing-room, weaving around the boxes which lined the corridor, still awaiting unpacking. She resolved to renegotiate the loan with her cousin in view of all these recent developments. There was some money put away, but unless her own employment prospects improved, they would have to find a cheaper apartment. The situation could get difficult without Christine's singing, but perhaps the debacle of the _Opéra Comique_ was just as well: clearly, Christine did not wish to sing in any case, and no money in the world would have compelled Madame Giry to force the girl after what she had been through.

_Alas_, she thought to herself with grim humour, if things continued in this vein, she would be forced to borrow back some of the money she had left at the feet of the man formerly known as the Phantom.

All things considered, "666" had seemed a rather obvious combination for his safe.


	3. La Lanterne

**A big thankyou to everyone who is following this story and reviewing – you guys are wonderful! **(Oh, and random fun fact for the day, with thanks to Mominator for reminding me to mention it: the boulevards in Paris were actually largely asphalted over by the 1860s. So there you are. Who says reading fanfic isn't educational? ;) )

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**Chapter 3 – _La Lanterne_**

The heights of Montmartre were an improbable place to go shopping, but Erik was determined to get as far away as possible from the siren call of the Opéra tunnels, and this, one of the poorest areas on the outskirts of the city, was perfect. The streets were narrow and confused, the shops small, and he soon discovered that by keeping to the shadow of the walls, he could pass all but unremarked even in the busier areas. He had tied a rag over the right side of his head and cut a hole for his eye, but he had the strange sensation that in this motley crowd, he would have been near-invisible even should he have walked naked down the street. Once or twice a passerby did turn around to give him a curious look, but he made sure he kept his face averted and they soon lost interest in what they clearly thought was yet another impoverished drunk.

More disconcertingly, at one point a little beggar boy had latched on to his shirt-tails, with a grip like death. Even after Erik had turned his rag-covered misshapen face towards him and scowled, the boy had kept looking at him with silent, hungry eyes and would not budge. In the end Erik picked him up bodily and threw him over a fence. He heard the boy's yelped obscenity, but then, surprisingly, his gleeful laugh: he had landed in a carrot patch in somebody's vegetable garden.

Children had been rare at the Opéra, laughing ones doubly so. Erik thought this undeniably a point in its favour.

In trying to escape the mockery of that startling, happy laugh, he found himself at last inside a shop. It was little more than a hole in the wall: a wooden counter set back from the street, and deep floor-to-ceiling shelves lining the walls all three sides. Behind the counter sat a large, red-faced woman of indeterminate years and even more indeterminate hair colour, wearing a man's brown workshirt. She was loudly reading from the pocket-sized magazine in her hands, evidently for the benefit of somebody in the back of the store. _La Lanterne_, Erik read on the front cover.

"Got a customer, Jean!" she bellowed suddenly, and levelled an irritated stare at Erik. "Yes?"

"Bonjour, madame," he said coldly. He waited for the second it took her to notice his crudely improvised mask. "When you are satisfied that my head is indeed attached to the rest of my body, perhaps you would condescend to sell me a few necessary items?"

Too late, he realised that his polished, theatrically projected voice had surprised the woman far more than the covered part of his head had done.

"You'd best not be who I think you are," she said finally.

Erik felt himself go slowly numb. How stupid of him. How unbelievably stupid.

"Or," she went on, "I'll be forced to concede that the stuffed shirts at the _Paris Journal_ have for once managed to print the truth. Though not about him – you – being dead, it appears."

Erik somehow managed a composed, supercilious smile.

"I regret, madame, that I have no idea whom you have taken me for. I do not believe we are acquainted; in fact I am quite certain that I have not had the honour of learning your name."

"Louise Gandon," she said grudgingly. "Look here, sir, let's not fuck around. If you're indeed the one all the papers were shrieking about last week, the disfigured lover of the little Swedish 'demoiselle from the Opéra, then you have nothing to fear from the likes of me. It's high time someone put in a few good kicks up the Empire's arse, and torching the Opéra is as good a place to start as any, _merde_ – better than most!" She stabbed an emphatic finger at the magazine lying open on the counter.

"That's 900,000 francs a year that our beloved Emperor was doling out to it, the syphilitic sod, and I don't need to tell you what we could be doing with that money."

She tipped her chin in the direction of the street with an angry noise, as though the threadbare poverty of the crowd and the rundown buildings were somehow all the Opéra's fault.

"He thinks he can throw us a few bones, with his liberal this and liberal that, his Liberal Empire – pah! We're not blind, we see oppression when we feel it and we know what it's called, yes we do, and let me say this: you won't see me running to the _gendarmes_ to tell them you're alive after all! You gave all those yawning hypocrites with their diamonds and sable furs a night to remember, and spared us the burden of paying for their shitty extravagance. All I have to say to you is, thank you. Thank you."

Through this entire performance, while Louise Gandon had been growing ever redder in the face and more agitated, Erik felt an inexorably growing desire to laugh madly, which he checked only with the greatest effort. Who could have thought it? The Phantom of the Opera, a fighter for the poor!

"You mistake me, madame. Those were not my reasons."

As though stepping down off her own private stage, Louise Gandon let out her breath and looked at him with a quiet, fierce conviction:

"I don't give a damn what you reasons were, sir. No doubt the papers had the right of it, and all you and the girl wanted was her name up in lights and a bigger share of the pie. But fact is, you did the rest of us a good turn all the same. A strike against the Empire is a strike for us."

"A man was killed," Erik said neutrally.

"Oh yes, the singer. P... P-Piano? Pudgy?" Louise Gandon waved a hand vaguely. "Must've been the chandelier. A shame, yes. But it was for the greater good in the end. The best cause."

"The cause, yes," he echoed. Her dismissive reaction made him suddenly dizzy, as though his carefully reconstructed reality was threatening to come apart. So was this how it was supposed to be done, then? One was supposed to murder, only for a cause?

Yet he could not see Christine saying the words this woman had just said so lightly; words that seemed to him a trap, like his chamber of mirrors. They promised a way out of his purgatory with their simple justification: he'd had his causes too, oh yes; he only had to accept this as truth, and he could have power once again. And this fragile reality he had somehow built around Christine's words, Christine's kiss, would be gone forever. _The Phantom of the Opera... _His hand flew to his face instinctively, expecting to feel the mask. _He's here..._

But his hand found only the rag.

"Is something the matter? You're shaking."

"No." His voice was hoarse. "Just..."

He collected himself and said almost calmly: "Perhaps it is hunger."

"Oh, you poor man!" She clicked her tongue, "Look at me, carrying on, while you're practically starving! Now, what is it you wanted?"

_Certainly not your pity_, Erik wanted to snarl. Instead, he stepped up to the counter and resumed the role of a man.

He cast a glance over the contents of the shelves behind her.

"Candles, madame," he said crisply, "if you would be so good. And matches, a set of compasses, pens, ink, lead and ink pencil, red chalk, white chalk, charcoal, an easel, three boxes of draughting paper, and," he looked down at himself. "Soap. A lot of soap."

And so, while Louise Gandon walked around collecting the things he had enumerated and anything else he could think of to add to the list, Erik contemplated this strange reality. He was standing in a store with the money Madame Giry had returned to him and this bizarre woman was serving him like any other customer, as though all this was perfectly natural and he had not spent a lifetime underground and a week hiding from a long-dispersed mob. He wondered how long it could possibly continue.

"So what do you do?" came Louise Gandon's voice from the depths of the store. She was standing high up on a ladder, counting out something from a high shelf.

"I beg your pardon?"

"For a living, I mean." She started down the ladder, carrying a box of candles. "You _do_ work?"

Erik blinked. "I am... seeking employment as an architect, madame." He gestured at the growing pile of draughting implements on the counter. "My tools."

She gave him a probing look. "Then... you're not a singer?"

"No," Erik said flatly. "I am not."

"Aha!" Louise Gandon punched the air in triumph. "I knew the _Journal_ couldn't be right more than once a year. So." She added the box to the pile. "That's the last of it. Where should I have it sent?"

"Sent?"

"Yes," she gave him a strange look. "Surely you don't mean to carry the lot?" The pile covered the better part of the counter. "I'll need an address. And a name for the bill."

"Erik," he said after a moment. He was strangely pleased by the sound of it uttered aloud.

Then he surprised himself by adding: "Erik Andersson. It's ... Swedish."

"Oh right. Like the girl. And the address?"

The address. Why had it not occurred to him before that he had to have somewhere to take all these things to? An address...

Louise Gandon gave him a look of unexpected understanding. "You too, huh? The landlords are bastards, no man is safe from their greed. Not even an architect!" She roared, "Jean!"

A middle-aged man with a shock of red hair and a pair of glasses clipped to his nose popped his head out from a back door. "What is it, Louise?" He held up his ink-stained hands. "I'm trying to work here."

"The sign can wait. This man has been kicked out of his home by another of those bleeding monsters. He's an architect."

Jean transferred his nearsighted eyes to Erik then back to Louise. "Looking to rent, is he?"

"I am," Erik said drily, unused to being the subject of a conversation carried out as though he was not there. "Perhaps you have somebody to recommend? A landlord?"

The rest of Jean appeared from around the door. "There's a man upstairs as just moved out." He pointed up, at the ceiling. "I could put you up. Place is small though, just one room."

"I have no family."

"Well and good, sir, but it's 80 francs a month. Fair price and it won't rise, I'm no big city landlord to bleed a man dry."

"That seems fair, monsieur."

"Well then, come on through." Jean lifted up part of the countertop to allow Erik to enter. "I'll show you around. Heard the latest about Bismarck?" he glanced over his shoulder as they headed for the back stairs.

At Erik's blank look, he threw up his hands. "Good Lord, man, have you been living under a rock? Louise! Give me that thing."

He caught the copy of _La Lanterne_ which Louise tossed to him, and promptly pushed it into Erik's hands.

"Page twelve, sir: _Bismarck's trap for France_. In our day and age a man cannot afford the ignorance of an ostrich hiding with its head in the sand."

"No indeed," Erik said quietly, taking the magazine. "It seems I cannot."


	4. The Tale of the Marsh King's Daughter

Thanks so much to all of you who are reviewing this. Every single review is appreciated, cuddled, treasured, and basically makes my day!

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**Chapter 4 – The Tale of the Marsh King's Daughter**

"A ball, Raoul!"

Raoul picked her up by the waist and spun her around, laughing. "Yes, a ball! A glittering ball at the Tuileries, two weeks from now, with the Emperor and Empress and all the nobles and ladies and I swear, not one of them will look half as stunning as you."

He set her down in the middle of the cramped parlour.

"Please say you will come."

"Of course I will," Christine smiled up at him. "I would be delighted. And," she looked mischievous, "I will even let you buy me a dress for the occasion."

She gave a startled cry and laughed as he spun her around again, faster and faster. "One dress! One! Put me down, put–"

"Oomph."

The both found themselves on the floor, in the middle of Madame Giry's rug.

Christine reached up to kiss the tip of nose. "You're going to be late for your father."

"I don't care." Raoul cupped her face in his hands and sought her lips instead. "You're much better company."

Christine hesitated a moment, then responded to the familiar, comfortable warmth of his kiss, the way she always had. He was gentle, and wonderful, and all their kisses were what she had always known a kiss should be: a soothing, caring promise...

All except that one time, after they had gone to see the burnt shell of the opera house and he had kissed her with such frightening, desperate passion that it burnt her to her heart; a kiss almost like– but she did not dare indulge those thoughts. It was a hidden flaw in her, something wrong with her very soul, that she found herself returning again and again to that other kiss, that other man, lost in his darkness. _No angel_, she had thought when her lips had brushed his; _no demon_, as he gasped and some impulse drove her to taste him with her tongue, oh God, inside him; _no ghost_, with her hand pressed to the hot ruin of his cheek and the tears on her palm. _Only a man._

"No," she whispered, pulling suddenly back, "Oh Raoul... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"What's wrong?"

He held her gently, looking into her eyes, worried and she knew, a little scared. And God help her, she knew what his fear was.

She could not let it destroy her life, and his. She would not.

She tried a smile. It came out a bit crooked, so she tried again and got it right. "Look at us, we're like a couple of children. You're probably horribly late already; your father is going to hate me."

Raoul looked visibly relieved, accepting this reprieve she offered. He helped her up courteously, and they both brushed themselves off, avoiding each other's eyes.

"I shall call on you tomorrow, then. About the dress."

"Yes, please."

She took his hand for a moment. "Have a good day."

"And you."

And he was gone, with a click of the lock shutting on the front door. A porcelain figurine of a dancer on the mantlepiece trembled slightly, and was still.

"You are a strange girl, Christine Daaé."

"Meg!" Christine whirled around. "You startled me. I thought you were asleep."

Meg walked in, still wearing her dressing gown and only one stocking, but with her hair already done up. She grinned at Christine's flustered expression.

"I came out here to ask if I can borrow a pair of your red barrettes. I didn't know you were, um – entertaining."

She gave Christine a knowing look that made her blush spread all the way to her ears.

"We didn't, I mean, I didn't ... Raoul was just here to give me this." She held out the envelope with its golden seal. "It's for a ball at the Palace. To celebrate the, uh, the plebiscite results. Or something of the kind."

"The Palace?" Meg turned the envelope in her hands before handing it back. "Well, I can see why you wanted to thank Monsieur le Vicomte properly. On the floor."

"Arhh!" Christine waved the invitation in Meg's laughing face, "That's not funny!"

"It is, you know." Meg ducked Christine's ineffectual swatting and dropped down onto the armrest of a chair. She shook out the second silk stocking she was holding and began to put it on.

"Or maybe you're right." She shrugged a shoulder. "It's not funny. Just strange."

Christine looked at her, the smile slipping from her face.

"What do you mean?"

Meg fastened the garter and looked up.

"Just that I had thought you would be married by now. Oh, I know what _maman_ says about no decent girl marrying so young – but Christine, you were so happy together! I saw you the night of the masquerade and I thought, you would be married within the month, even before I saw that ring. You practically glowed."

"Yes," Christine whispered. "I suppose we were happy."

"And then afterwards, when you two came out of the cellars together... It looked just like a fairy tale."

"Yes... It probably did."

"So why then are you here, kissing him on the floor as though both your lives depended on it and then pushing him away?"

"Because it didn't _feel_ like a fairy tale, Meg!"

Meg looked at her in surprise.

Christine paced around the small parlour, her fists clenched, glancing up as though it could stop the tears. Then she dropped down again in front of where Meg sat. Her hands opened nervelessly.

"I was so tired. Exhausted. And wet, and cold. Raoul could barely stand. There was smoke everywhere, and people... It was hard to think, so many things had happened."

Meg nodded slowly.

"I gave away his ring."

"You – what?" Meg stared at Christine's deathly pale face; even her lips had gone bloodlessly white.

"The ring, the engagement ring Raoul gave me, the one – don't, Meg, please..."

Meg's hand stopped before she could touch Christine's arm.

"But I thought, the Phantom, at the masquerade..."

"No, he gave it back but then, then I, Meg, I..." She spoke very fast, her voice cracking dangerously, on the edge of hysteria: "I don't know why I did it. Or maybe I do, I don't know, he was down there with the boat, Raoul was, and I went up, I..."

"Take a breath. It's all right, it's over. Whatever happened, it's over. It doesn't matter now, it's over. It's all right."

"No it's not."

Christine took a deep, shuddering breath; absently, she rubbed her bare finger, as though the memory was alive in her mind.

"I took if off, and I put it in his hand. The Phantom's. And then I – I closed his fingers over it because he was crying and, and I didn't – I thought it might drop! And I wanted to be sure he'd keep it. It seemed important somehow, God – I don't know why. Then I went back and Raoul didn't ask, maybe he never even saw that I'd got it back, he must think it's still stolen but I gave it away myself, what bride does that! What's wrong with me, Meg, I'm not well, I'm crazy..."

"Shh, Christine... It's all right."

She let Meg embrace her, squeezing her eyes shut against the wracking sobs that suffocated her with self-hatred.

"You said yourself you were exhausted, and after everything that happened with _Don Juan_, you were distressed, not thinking clearly. You're not crazy, Christine. Please don't cry. It is only a ring. You will have another, when you're married, and you'll be ever so happy! Really, this will all be forgotten, you'll see. Please don't cry."

"You're right. I was just distressed, you're right."

Christine found the sobs had stopped, and everything she had so foolishly babbled was slowly returning to its place inside her heart, making it heavy once again. How could Meg understand it when she herself didn't? She had been wrong to worry her needlessly and make herself a mess before their first rehearsal at the _Variétés_.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I don't know what came over me."

Meg stood up lightly, bouncing on her stockinged toes. "It's probably nerves. Are you hungry? We should go soon, we had better not be late for warm-up, on the first day."

"I'm fine. Let me fetch those barrettes for you now."

She picked up the invitation and hurried back through the dining room to her bedroom, eager to put an end to the whole embarrassing episode and trying to think only of the upcoming rehearsal. They would catch the omnibus to the _Variétés_, and then there were warm-ups, and barre, and two hours of trying to force her muscles to remember her training from before the days when she was a singer. She hoped she was not as out of shape as she felt, because then there would be costume fittings, and two more hours of precision torture, and then she would be home with Meg, soaking the agony from her blistered feet with hot water and soda. Then Madame Giry would be back from her new job at the _Théâtre Français_ and they would have supper, and she would drink scalding black coffee and try to forget that tomorrow, she would have to do it all over again.

And then at night, she would fall asleep to the silence in her head, where once there had been joy and her angel of music, then fear and the murdering demon, and now... Now both the angel and the murderer were gone, and instead something incomprehensible was growing inside her, a wild yearning that spread like ink through her soul, turning it black and tainting everyone she touched.

And Raoul... Christine looked at the invitation in her hand. She remembered the old Scandinavian tale her father had told her, of a demon-girl who seemed human but did not know how to love. She was afraid that she was becoming that girl.

o o o

"Gentlemen! If I may have your attention, please. One moment of your time."

The two young men occupying the large, airy office looked up from their drawing boards to the door, which Monsieur Duchamp had just shut behind himself and another man.

Monsieur Duchamp, a stately, elderly gentleman who still favoured the old-fashioned tall top-hats and greased moustaches, stood aside politely to indicate the new arrival.

"Gentlemen, this is Monsieur Erik Andersson, a sketch artist and master draughtsman. He also makes some very fine scale models, if the selection I examined this morning is any indication. He will be joining us on the Sedan project. Monsieur, my staff."

He led the way to the drawing boards.

"This skinny lad here is Monsieur Vincent Fiaux, an engineer who saw the light several years ago thanks to Baron Haussmann's grand projects, and turned architect. A real prodigy when it comes to calculating even the most fiendishly complex stresses."

"Pleased to meet you, sir," Vincent Fiaux said, rising in his chair to shake Erik's hand.

Erik saw his startled look when the young man noticed the bandages covering the right side of his head, but somehow it did not alter his friendly manner. He had to concede that Louise Gandon had been right in her advice the morning after he had moved in, when she had turned up at his door with a roll of linen: outside the theatre, a mask invited questions; a bandage discouraged them.

"And this fashionable chap is Monsieur Jacques Choury, the best designer and draughtsman I have ever had the honour to work with. Don't let the neat haircut fool you. Even the ossified old dogmatists at the _École Nationale des Beaux-Arts_ could not manage to train all the originality out of him; he won every prize there was."

"Bonjour, monsieur," came the second handshake.

The institution name meant nothing to Erik, but only a deaf man could have missed the air of pride with which Monsieur Duchamp pronounced it. Therefore, he adopted an expression of the deepest admiration:

"I am honoured, monsieur."

That seemed sufficient to induce a friendly grin from Jacques Choury, who even had the good manners to pretend he had not seen the bandages.

"Now." Monsieur Duchamp clasped his hands together. "Perhaps I could leave you two gentlemen to familiarise Monsieur Andersson with our most recent projects. I should like us to meet later this afternoon to discuss the commission for the new de Chagny residence at Saint-Cloud, perhaps over some wine, hmm?"

"Certainly," they said, "gladly."

_The de Chagny residence._

Erik felt ill. Black and red stains danced in front of his eyes, as after a blow to the back of his ugly, malformed skull. It was a verdict.

Of course Christine and her husband would be building a new house. And his own private fire, his hell of atonement, was to create a house for a life he could never have, for a wife who was not his, for a love that would last another man's lifetime. A drawing room for her friends. A bedroom for her beautiful daughter, a study for her eldest son and a nursery for the youngest. A ballroom, a guest wing, four entrances for the staff, and a grand stables for every one of their accursed, thrice-damned fine thoroughbred horses! Oh yes, and a master bedroom with a four-poster bed, surmounted by an enamelled crest of the de Chagny family.

"That sounds fascinating," he said amiably. "I should love to hear more about this project; I don't believe I have ever been to Saint-Cloud. As a small point of curiosity, Monsieur Duchamp..."

"Yes?"

"I wonder whether our mutual friend, a certain Madame Giry, may have recommended this firm to the de Chagnys?"

Monsieur Duchamp looked surprised. "I really haven't the least idea, monsieur. We have had numerous private clients over the years, I daresay any one of them could have put in a good word. But say, what a marvellous thought!"

He seemed to light up from within, taken with a new notion. "We really ought to compile some information on where the best recommendations are coming from; it would be most instructive. Yes, a marvellous idea, Monsieur Andersson, I shall keep it in mind!"

And with that he walked off towards his private office at the end of the larger room, purposeful and quite at ease.

Yes, Erik thought; it was certainly _instructive_ to know where this particular recommendation had come from. How fortunate, in fact, that he had kept the slip of paper he had found fallen by accident to the bottom of the bag Madame Giry had left him, presumably one of those she had been handing out to let former acquaintances know of her new address. Yes. Very fortunate indeed.

"So, Monsieur Andersson," said Jacques Choury, "shall we go over those sketches?"

Vincent Fiaux hooked a skinny ankle around the leg of a nearby chair and pulled it up.

"Make yourself at home, sir, we don't stand on ceremony while we're working. I say, I should like to hear more about those scale models of yours: old Duchamp isn't easily impressed."

Erik sat down, nodding in thanks. "I should be pleased to show them to you when we have a moment. But perhaps the sketches first?"

"Yes of course," Fiaux said. "Choury, may I have that folder?"

And the workday continued.

At night, Erik opened the strongbox where he kept some of the money.

He sat at his worktable, looking at it for a while, motionless. Then he removed a few bills, considered the rise in prices since had done this last, and took out a few more. He set the money in a neat pile, next to the slip of paper bearing an address written in Madame Giry's graceful, precise hand.

It was not far.

He took down the little velvet pouch with Christine's ring from its spot on the bookshelf above his table. Without opening it, he stuffed it quickly inside the strongbox and turned the lock. Then he threw the key in the drawer, slammed the drawer shut, and stood up.

With an easy, elegant motion, his arm moving like the wing of a falling angel, he reached for the folder he had borrowed from the architect's office. He leafed through it slowly, almost indifferently. The de Chagny residence at Saint-Cloud: Elevation of the façade... Gardens... Cutaway view... Floor plan... Master suite.

He put the folder away, took the money from the table and placed it into his waistcoat pocket. Then he unwound the bandage from his face and replaced it with his linen mask, knotting the fabric tightly at the nape of his neck. He strode over to the window beside the iron bed and held open the curtains, framing an imperfect mirror.

Out of the depth of night, the mask stared back at him: a featureless white half-moon with a hollow cavern for an eye.

It would take a few days to prepare. He could wait.


	5. A Man Like Any Other

**Thank you so, so much for reviewing, guys! Reviews make my day, and more importantly (perhaps!) they make it much easier to keep writing. It was really interesting to me to see how you guys took the last chapter, especially, in view of things to come (sly grin).**

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**Chapter 5 – A Man Like Any Other**

The manicured gardens of the Tuileries looked impressive even by day. By night, with the wide avenue leading to the palace lit by a hundred torches borne by liveried footmen, the grandeur of the place was magnified a thousandfold. The façade of the palace rose in the distance, every window ablaze with golden light.

"It's spectacular," Christine said, peering out the window of their carriage. She ducked back, "And kind of frightening. Like an opening night gala."

Raoul slipped an arm lightly around her waist. "Nothing of the sort. Only some old men jumping for joy because the people voted to keep the Empire. They'll all want to dance with you, you know. I shall be forced to dance with my mother and torment myself by watching you flirt shamelessly with a terribly distinguished rich marquis who will be in every respect my superior."

Christine grinned. "Now look who is frightened! You have my solemn promise," she said seriously, "that I shall contrive to be a terrible dancer, and so repel the other gentlemen that they will gladly allow you to dance with me all night, and even through supper."

Raoul gave her one look of perfect mortification, before they both dissolved into helpless laughter.

"You couldn't be a terrible dancer if you tried, Little Lotte."

"I wish Madame Giry shared your confidence! My ears are still ringing from the talking-to Meg and I got after the opening night at the _Variétés_. Apparently we are out of shape, out of time, too fond of smiling ridiculously, and in sum, two of the most unconvincing sylphs to ever land gracelessly on the stage."

"I'm glad to hear it."

"Glad! Raoul..."

"Certainly. I have always wanted to dance with a graceless sylph."

Christine attempted to kick his ankle, but it proved impossible through the layers of gown.

Raoul caught her lips in a kiss. "Here is our cue."

The carriage rolled to a halt at the palace entrance, and a footman was immediately at the door. He helped Raoul down and then stood aside politely while Christine took Raoul's white-gloved hand and descended the lowered steps to the marble forecourt.

Behind them, more carriages were pulling up, more gentlemen and ladies were descending onto the marble, like a swarm of tropical butterflies in the firelit brilliance of the night. The sound of violins floated from within the opened double doors.

"It really is like a theatre set," Christine whispered, as Raoul took her arm. "The largest theatre I have ever seen, with the most pompous _corps de ballet_ on earth."

She felt the tug of Raoul's arm as he tried to stifle his laughter.

"Ah! Here they are," said a female voice behind them.

Raoul and Christine were joined by a tall, elegant lady in a crimson gown, and her stern, preoccupied-looking husband, both no longer young but still attractive with the easy, unselfconscious bearing of the born aristocracy.

"_Bon soir_, darling." The Comtesse de Chagny kissed Raoul's cheek, simultaneously fixing a button on his jacket.

"_Bon soir, maman_. Please stop that." He looked so embarrassed that Christine could not help a small grin. "_Bon soir_, Father."

The Comtesse turned to Christine with a smile while Raoul exchanged a few terse words with his father.

"_Bon soir,_ Mademoiselle Daaé. You're looking lovely, my dear, rose is such a pretty colour on you."

Christine curtseyed politely. "I could never hope to have your elegance, Comtesse. That is a splendid gown."

The Comtesse laughed, pleased.

"Don't flatter me, mademoiselle, I'm much too old to believe it, especially from one as young and pretty as yourself. I trust my son has been taking good care of you so far this evening?"

Christine smiled up at Raoul as he again took her arm. "Always, Comtesse."

The Comtesse turned to her son: "See that it remains that way, Raoul darling. Shall we go inside? Do try to enjoy yourselves, you are looking so dour these days!"

Christine and Raoul fell in behind the de Chagnys and the other couples making their way towards the open doors of the palace. Christine noticed the glances exchanged by other women as they eyed each other's gowns avidly, without the barest attempt to disguise their competitive curiosity. For her part, she wished the dress Raoul had commissioned for her had a smaller crinoline and a more modest _décolletage_, but it seemed the favoured style here, and she did not feel out of place.

'Dress' was, in fact, a sadly inadequate term for this elaborate tulle confection, which had required both Meg's and Madame Giry's aid in lacing her into the corset, strapping on the steel frame of the crinoline, and arranging over it the voluminous skirts of the gown. Everywhere else in Paris this lampshade look was becoming _passé_, but in the rarified atmosphere of the Tuileries, where fashion was not dictated by the width of the omnibus benches, it seemed to be holding its own.

Christine had to admit that she was enjoying it. It reminded her of the extravagant costumes of the Opéra, the slightly ludicrous but magnificent dresses in which even a skinny ballet girl in her very first singing role could feel like a star.

Then they were inside, where the butler was announcing the guests:

"Mademoiselle Christine Daaé, and the Vicomte de Chagny!"

Christine caught a few curious stares from other guests, no doubt occasioned by the scandal of her name in the papers.

"Ignore them," Raoul said under his breath, as they continued into the foyer.

He was right, Christine thought; the only thing to do was to ignore them, and soon enough new and more exciting scandals would replace hers. Already, their interest had been caught by another woman's gown of shockingly bright green silk, and the stares were diverted from her.

The immense foyer, with its lavishly painted ceiling and glittering chandeliers, once again put Christine in mind of the Opéra, but she stopped those thoughts and resolved to follow the advice of Comtesse and simply enjoy herself. She had to learn to close the door on the past.

She hurried to join the Comtesse and other ladies in the dressing-room, where servants helped them remove their wraps and fix their hair, while they cast a few more appraising looks at each other's outfits. Here, too, Christine noticed a few unsubtle glances in her direction, and a few whispers, but the Comtesse firmly took her arm and engaged her in a conversation about the new house she and the Comte were building in the lovely fashionable town of Saint-Cloud outside Paris.

"Really, Mademoiselle Daaé, you must impress upon my son that he is not to allow you to spend the entire summer in Paris; it is in every way unhealthy. Two months by the sea would do both of you a world of good."

"Nothing would please me more, Comtesse – but I have been engaged at the _Variétés_ for this season. I'm afraid it would be impossible for me to leave Paris until November."

"The _Variétés_? I see." The Comtesse gave her a long look. The expression on her fine-boned face did not change, save for a slight quirk of her eyebrows, yet it said everything.

"Well, my dear. We all decide on our own priorities. Ah, here is my son now. And as usual, no sign of my husband."

Raoul met them outside, having deposited his own hat, cloak and cane at the gentlemen's cloakroom.

"I left Father with Monsieur Ollivier, _maman_. They are off on Prussia and the throne of Spain and Bismarck."

The Comtesse sighed, "I had best find him, darling, or he will spend the entire evening with the other gentlemen from the Assembly, talking politics and being dreadfully unsociable. The two of you go on inside, I believe they are starting."

And she was off, gliding through the crowd to where she had spotted the Comte, just as the sound of the trumpet came to announce the start of the dancing.

Christine hurried inside with Raoul, through a pair of ceiling-high ornamented doors and into the grand ballroom.

"What did she say to you?" Raoul murmured as they found their set for the first quadrille. "You're frowning."

"Nothing. I am merely concentrating on my plan to be a terrible dancer."

"Indeed? I had thought you meant to be a terrible dancer only with other men."

Christine gave him a teasing look. "But I need to bring my skills down to your level."

"Ah," Raoul grinned at her covertly just as the music started. "I shall have to show you just how wrong you are about that, Mademoiselle Daaé." He clasped her hand and led her forward. "Prepare to be swept off your feet, Little Lotte."

And for the next two dances, Christine gladly allowed him to do just that. It was easy to dance with Raoul, they had danced together so many times, both as children and over the past year, that it seemed the most natural thing in the world. They made polite conversation with the others in their set while awaiting their turn, and more polite conversation when the quadrille was finished. She accepted dancing engagements from a few other young men, most of whom she recalled meeting at one time or another in the de Chagny salon before the disaster of the Opéra. Then the waltz began and, as she and Raoul whirled around the room, Christine could almost forget the look the Comtesse had given her when she mentioned the _Variétés_, and the flash of irrational anger she had felt at this disapproval. She abandoned herself to the dance.

The evening wore on, interrupted only once, briefly, by a surprisingly low-key entrance of the Emperor and Empress. They were older than Christine had expected from having seen the photographs in newspapers, and while she curtseyed deeply as the royal procession made its way towards their seats, she could not help but notice that the Emperor seemed pale and in some pain. Vaguely, she recalled rumours that he was ill and in constant unremitting agony, but somehow it had seemed ridiculous that Emperor Napoleon III could be subject to the same ravages of nature as anybody else.

Yet when they broke up the dancing for supper, and the entire party followed the Emperor and Empress into the adjoining hall, Christine saw once again, and at much closer quarters, the cautious way the Emperor held himself and the unnatural sallowness of his complexion. Even the Emperor, it seemed, for all his power, was just a man like any other. Christine could not say why she found the thought so oddly comforting.

When the night ended, she was grateful to be back in the carriage, leaning tiredly against Raoul, with his arm around her shoulders. She nodded absently to his attempts to involve her in conversation, until he gave up and only held her quietly as they both watched the lighted boulevards roll by.

"Christine?"

She stirred sleepily. "Mm?"

"Father wanted to know why I have not yet bought you a ring."

Christine went very still.

She felt wide awake now, her heart pounding against her chest.

"I explained to him that you had one," Raoul went on. "And about it being stolen from you."

Christine was silently grateful for the semi-darkness of the carriage, which hid her burning face. "I... I see."

"I was hardly going to tell him this, but as it happens..." He took something out of his pocket. "I had been meaning to ask you before, but we never seemed to get a chance. So, I went ahead and just got one."

He held the jewellery box open before her. Christine felt herself turning to marble, in a cold wave from the tips of her hair down to her feet. She had known. She had expected it.

It was a diamond, on a delicate gold band. In the thin scattered light of the boulevard outside, the stone burned with a black fire.

"Is it too plain?"

"Plain? No, Raoul... No. It's beautiful. But I can't take it, you know I can't!"

"You can! God, Christine, why not?" He looked stricken but also somehow determined. "You cannot keep punishing us both like this!"

Christine understood suddenly why he had not asked her earlier, before the ball. He had known she would not take it.

"Have you changed your mind about marrying me?"

"Of course not!"

"Then what is it?"

"Please, Raoul. I want nothing more than for us to be happy, but I cannot, I will not, take another ring. Not after all that happened last time."

"For Heaven's sake, Christine..." Raoul looked at the ring and then back to her. "It is only a ring. It cannot bring back the past."

She could see the words forming in his mind, the things they never spoke about. The Phantom had disappeared, the opera house had burned, there was nothing left to haunt their courtship but their memories. And yet, she knew why Raoul needed her to take this ring. She had to kill the ghost inside.

The carriage had stopped. They sat, looking at one another, the ring lying between them in its box: such a small, such an impossible request.

After a moment, Raoul snapped the box shut and put it back into his pocket.

They left the carriage without speaking. The concierge let them into the apartment building and they went upstairs, their shoes echoing loudly on each step.

They were outside the door when Christine turned around.

"Give me time, Raoul."

He said nothing, but he looked at her for a moment, and in his eyes Christine saw a glimpse of the first and last performance of _Don Juan_, his hurt and his fear and knowledge.

Then he left.


	6. Outside, Looking In

Today's trivia is on the subject of Raoul's parents: he mentions them in the film, therefore in this version, they are very much alive. Also, the titles of Count (Comte) and Viscount (Vicomte) are different (although the son of a Count could be styled Viscount as a 'courtesy title' until he inherited the actual title from his father). Under Napoleonic rule, the old regulations were changed, and titles were distributed in mind-bogglingly confusing ways: the title of Count was often given for some military or political achievements, as in the case of General Palikao, for example. In my version, Raoul's father is a Count by virtue of political successes, and his hereditary title of Viscount gets passed on to Raoul. Nothing like some randomly irrelevant information to brighten your day, huh?

**Thanks so much for reviewing, everyone! Please do continue; given the rate at which this story is taking over my life, I desperately need some justification for all that time spent writing!**

I hope you guys caught the hint in the last chapter. Well, two hints really: Erik has been jumping to some pretty rash, if logical, conclusions about the de Chagny residence (it is not Christine's house and Madame Giry certainly did not send him to the architect's office to build it!), and Christine's brilliant idea to rejoin the ballet was not so brilliant after all, if the Comtesse has anything to say on the subject. ;)

Anyway, that's enough from me. On with the story!

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**Chapter 6 – Outside, Looking In**

Erik chose a narrow ornamental balcony that faced the courtyard, barely wide enough to stand on. The night was nearly moonless, with only a sliver of white among the stars, and that suited him very well indeed. In the courtyard there were no lamps, and the few lighted windows that surrounded him now served only to cast a faint golden sheen on the wall of the apartment block and the cobblestones below, two floors of vertical nothing. He gave the door a light push to check the hinges. It inched forward soundlessly, the broken latch detaching itself from the inside wall. Erik remained on the balcony, the lasso in his hand. His black cloak merged with shadow.

He revelled in the familiar sense of peace in this darkness, in this stillness of expectant death. Here, he was the master of every small movement in the shadows, of the music of other lives, of their deceptive rhythm. Here it was he who decided who lived and who died, and how, and why. He was home again. The previous weeks seemed to him like a nightmare of running through water, spending all his strength in a futile fight against the pull of the tide, a foolish, pointless escape. Without warning he found a memory of many years ago: a child's confused recall of discovering the canals beneath the Opéra. The water had shocked him, the strange, cold embrace that met his fall, and the inexorable drag of the current, down, down into forever. But when he had given up fighting that current, it deposited him on the side of the great lake, the beautiful space where sound was perfectly formed and where he had at last found a home.

Madame Giry had given him that home. She had made him the Phantom. It was she who had turned a blind eye to the lessons with Christine, she who had given Christine his roses, as though she had hoped a little virgin sacrifice could save him. She had not protected Christine from his corrupting touch. The sin was hers.

And now, she wanted him to pay for it, to rebuild a life she herself had helped him steal from Christine. _The de Chagny residence_. Through his suffering, she thought to save herself. But he would not let her.

There was a movement inside the room, and a candle flickered alight. Erik's fingers coiled around the lasso.

It was her.

Madame Giry strode over to the polished table and set the candle down. It made the room glow with a warm half-light, like a stage-set for a dream.

Erik watched silently from behind the dark window as she sat at the empty table, directly opposite so that her face was turned towards him. He knew she could not see him, but the candle was between them and he was not certain he could get a good angle without spilling it and starting a fire. He did not want another fire.

So he watched her. She looked at the flame for a while, and then down at her hands. She unbuttoned her gloves and pulled them off, one by one, then held up her hands to the light, inspecting them. Erik could not read her expression, but even so near the glare of the candle, he could see clearly what she was looking at: her hands were reddened to the wrist, the skin dry and cracked in places. Confused for a moment, he recalled her hands when she had given him the architect's card – they had not been red then.

She stood up and walked away, leaving the stage empty for a long time. Erik waited in the darkness with his legs pressing back against the railing of the balcony, without moving. A droplet of wax rolled down the candle and froze there, tear-like.

When Madame Giry returned, she was carrying a steaming teacup, and something in a jar of dark brown glass. She sat again, and this time Erik noticed the way she caught her breath slightly, as though the movement pained her back, but no pain crossed her face. She opened the jar and rubbed the contents on her hands in brisk movements; it had to be wool fat or a similar ointment, Erik decided. A moment later the jar was put aside and she was calmly sipping the tea. It had to be tea, because he would have smelled the coffee from where he stood.

The candle grew shorter. He knew now, without quite being able to shape the thought to himself, that the candle was not an obstacle. That it had never been an obstacle. Yet he watched the candle, and the teacup going up and down behind it, in a movement like water in an underground lake. Another minute. He thought again of the de Chagny residence. The elevation of the façade. The rope in his fingers seemed to have gone slippery; he felt suddenly it was a living thing, a serpent of hell sent down to tempt him.

No. It was the woman who was the serpent. She had tricked him with a promise of life and delivered suffering. She had to die.

The rope moved.

One flick of his wrist to open the door. Another to free himself of the serpent.

Madame Giry left the room again. Erik felt beads of sweat form cold on his forehead, soaking his linen mask on one side. It frightened him; he did not remember it ever happening before. A droplet crawled unbearably down his neck, into the collar of his shirt. The candle wept another drop of wax.

_A shame_, Louise Gandon spoke in his mind. _But it was for a good cause._

No. That was a lie, a pretty lie he would not tell himself. This was death, and he was the cause. The rope was in his hand.

He touched the door. It swung inward a fraction, stirring the open curtain with a breath of night air. Nothing else moved. He waited.

He heard the approaching footsteps and raised the rope.

There would be only one chance to get this right. Noiseless and quick, with no chance to scream. He felt the coil of the noose against his thumb.

Absurdly, he thought of her red, chapped hands. A girl in a patched ballet frock, holding out her hand.

A serpent.

A serpent with broken hands.

He moved his shoulder to get the cloak out of the way, and got ready.

The rope slipped.

Erik made a grab for it but it was too late, the lasso slithered down over the side of the tiny balcony, uncoiling with lightning speed, plunging down. In a split second he knew it would hit the cobbles and the noise would be enough to startle his prey and it would be too late, too late...

He caught the very end. The rope dangled, swinging in the windless night. It had not touched the ground.

Erik stared down at it. Never before had the lasso failed him in this way, slid uselessly out of his grasp just as he was about to strike, an accident...

He stopped.

He thought of a rope swinging like this, with a man's corpse for a pendulum. Back and forth across the stage. "An accident!" the managers of the Opéra Populaire had shrieked, while everyone ran in terror. "Simply an accident!"

But they had known then, just as he knew now: there were no accidents.

He had dropped the rope. He had dropped it deliberately, with a tiny change of pressure from his thumb. He had made it fall. Because... In his mind he saw a body swinging back and forth across the stage while he held the rope in his fist, like a grotesque puppet show. Only this time, the corpse was that of a girl in a ballet frock.

He heard the footsteps again through the gap in the door, and held himself very still, turning his eyes back to the room.

And then he did drop the rope.

Madame Giry was back at the table. Next to her sat Christine.

o o o

"What was that?" Christine said, startled by the noise. "Something in the yard?"

Madame Giry shrugged. "More food for strays, no doubt. Our piano-haters downstairs may not think much of ballerinas but they are certainly fond of dogs, to be throwing them bones and bread every night. "

Christine gave a wry smile in appreciation of Madame Giry's attempt at smalltalk, but made no reply. She picked up her teacup, but did not drink. Then she set it down again.

"Is Meg asleep?"

"Yes, my dear. It is well after midnight."

Christine nodded. She felt Madame Giry watching her, knowing that she was expecting an account of the ball, but all Christine could see was the open jewellery box with the diamond staring back at her like an accusation she could not refute. She felt wound up and angry, her insides compressed into a tangle of hatred, and she could not say why or at whom. A childish, vicious part of her whispered that it was Raoul's fault, that if only he had not spoiled the night with that ring, everything would have been fine. It felt like he had picked at a wound she had been trying so hard to heal, and made it bleed.

And yet it was not Raoul she was angry with. He thought her an angel, pure as her voice. He could not know his Little Lotte was a demon-child, a beautiful creature with a rotting soul, who took his ring and gave it to another, and who could not regret it.

"I am very tired, Madame Giry. Forgive me, I think I will go to bed. May I leave it until tomorrow to tell you both about the ball?"

"Of course, child."

Christine forced herself to rise slowly from her seat, to stand patiently while Madame Giry loosened the lacing at the back of her corset, and then to walk sedately back to her bedroom. She felt Madame Giry's eyes on her the whole way, even after she had rounded the corner into the corridor, and she knew she was behaving strangely but it was beyond her power to stop it. The shameful anger inside her felt like a fireworks charge, a single wrong movement could spark it and then she would explode. She walked.

o o o

Christine. Here. Not at the de Chagny residence, not with the Vicomte, not anywhere else but here. Here at night. Living here. Living here, with Madame Giry.

Erik found he could not move, could not do the only thing he had to do: scale down the wall and fly like the night itself, back to the cab he had hired with its silent, paid-off driver, back to Montmartre and the anonymity of his room above the store. Instead he stood like an effigy of himself, a black shell that contained he knew not what.

Christine was here. Christine was talking to Madame Giry. They were drinking tea. He had come here to kill the woman Christine was talking to. Christine would have found him here with the corpse, another, another corpse – and it would have been the end, of everything.

The rope had slipped. He had dropped it himself.

Erik felt a sickening burning in the pit of his stomach. He had been walking blindfolded to the edge of an abyss, and now the blindfold had fallen along with the rope, and he saw the drop into Hell.

He also saw Christine turn as Madame Giry did something to her dress that made it loosen and slip dangerously, and realised that against all reason, Hell could actually get worse.

He had to leave. He had to find himself again, somehow, find Christine's ring and think of that, think of her ring, not of the rope that lay coiled like a dead serpent under the wall, not of the slipping dress. He had to think of the ring and not of the fact that Christine was here, and the de Chagny residence... The Devil take the de Chagny residence. He could not understand it and did not want to. His mind was full of Christine.

A candle flickered behind the window to his right.

Erik looked at it.

It was another mirror, and once again he could be behind it.

It was madness.

It was very close; the walls were thin. He could touch the windowsill. Just one glimpse.

He was entirely still, without even a tremor of his hands or a movement of his eyes. He could not allow himself to do this. Having come so close, having finally come face to face with his own dark reflection and shattered that mirror, he could not, he could not, he could not dare to take on that role again. No mirrors. No music. Above all, no Christine.

He had to go back to Montmartre and learn to be a man, the man Christine had created or found or woken with her kiss. It was that or death or insanity, or very possibly all three, but here, with one temptation taking the form of another, he would be lost forever.

The candle went out, and the window turned dark.

Erik realised slowly that he was numb and probably bruised from standing in this awkward position, that his face itched abominably under the sweat-dampened mask, and finally that he was, in fact, standing on an ornamental balcony barely wide enough for a flower-pot, and had been there for the better part of the night.

He had to flee.

Then the window opened, and he saw Christine. She leaned out on her elbows, looked down, perhaps looking for the stray dogs.

Then she saw him.


	7. And Speaks My Name

Thanks again for all the reviews guys, please pleasekeep them coming, it's ever so much better than "writing into the void"! But I'm sure you all know that already.

Today's trivia, thanks to Ianthe and Mominator: (1) the story referred to in the title of Chapter 4 is by Hans Christian Andersen, and it's exactly the kind of "dark story of the North" that I think Christine and her father would have read; and (2) I have no idea why Christine's tombstone was in English, or why it identified her as Countess de Chagny. Perhaps they thought this is the correct translation of Vicomtesse. Or maybe Raoul was cheap and it didn't fit on the puny little headstone he got for her. ;)

**Note: Since this update is a direct continuation of the previous chapter, for the sake of emotional continuity I'd recommend reading the end the last chapter before starting on this one.**

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**Chapter 7 – "...And speaks my name"**

She did not scream. Erik knew this because her lips were white and closed; the dark window was scarcely an arm's reach away and he saw every feature, every line of her face drawn by the faint orange glow of the windows opposite. She had not moved, only her eyes went huge in her delicate, perfect face. What screamed was the silence, a rising, roaring, terrible crescendo in his ears.

He wanted to fall.

"Christine..." he heard himself say.

The word sent a shock through her face, like a stone breaking through water.

"You," she whispered. Then she looked down.

The lasso lay below, coiled in the shadow. Erik wondered if she saw it as clearly as he did. He looked back to the window.

Christine was not there.

For a dizzying instant Erik thought he had imagined her, but then there was a swish of dark curls and her face – and something black and solid was hurtling through the air.

He caught it.

Instinctively, he looked down at his closed hand, and saw that the object he held was a candlestick. A cold, heavy, brass candlestick. Which Christine had just thrown at his head.

"My thanks, mademoiselle," he said, because he had to say something. "Perhaps you could now oblige me with candles?"

He looked back at her and the words died. Christine's entire face and body radiated hatred. It struck him like a lasso: her shoulders, her bare arms, every muscle and sinew were tense with coiled rage.

"You wish to kill me?" He had meant it as a question, but it was not one.

There was not a trace of fear in her eyes. Instead, as Erik watched, something was born from the coils of anger and sparked in them, a dark flash like diamonds or betrayal.

"Should I not be the one to ask you that?" And then bitterly, "_Angel_."

She meant the lasso on the ground. For an insane moment Erik wanted to throw the candlestick back, to shatter the open windowpane and escape with her, with his Christine, down the wall and away, while the chaos erupted behind them.

Again.

He could not do it again. There was nowhere to run.

He clenched his jaw. "Do not call me 'angel'."

"Would you rather be called murderer?"

"No." He felt a kind of rage come back into him, a rage at himself, at the night. "My name is Erik."

He saw her disbelief, her anger – and something else. The death of kindness, a resignation.

"My name is Erik," he repeated, striving to keep his voice low. "That man," he glanced at the rope on the ground, "is dead. I threw him away."

"I see him before me," Christine said quietly. "I had thought him dead, but he is here. A masked man all in black, from his cloak to his soul, who murders at will."

"My name is Erik." The words came in a harsh whisper. "Christine! I did not come here to harm you!"

She looked back at him, impassive and silent.

With one hand, the other still clutching her candlestick, he ripped off the cloak. It fell, fluttering like a torn stage curtain, down to the ground. Christine followed its descent with her eyes.

When she looked back, Erik caught her gaze. Then, with a vicious sharp movement that made Christine flinch, he ripped the mask from his own face.

"My name is _Erik_."

He relished her shock.

He crushed the useless linen of the mask in his fist. It took all his self-control not to slap that hand up to his face, not to hide the nakedness of his deformity. He clenched his fist harder, letting her look at his face. Willing her to see.

"Say my name, Christine."

"No."

"Say it!"

"I want it back."

Erik stared at her, the words not making sense.

Christine put out her hand. "That candlestick, Erik. I want it back."

He felt his lips part involuntarily. The name she had spoken remained in the air between them; he breathed it, in and out.

Christine's hand closed hard over his, and the candlestick was gone. Then she was back through the window and he could only see a trace of her, like a ghost in her white night-dress, long hair curling wild over her shoulders and her eyes reflecting the night: black firelight.

Erik stepped on the parapet as though he could fly, and went after her through the dark window.

Inside, the space was tiny. There was an unmade bed and a dressing table by the window; the metallic glint of a key suggested a wardrobe in a corner behind them. There were no mirrors.

Christine was standing at the dresser, clutching the top of it, white-knuckled. Erik gripped her wrist and pressed the linen mask up into her opened palm.

She turned to him, holding it up to see. A triangle of cloth, with an empty eye socket. Her mouth twisted, she made as if to dart to the window to throw it out, but Erik caught her by the elbows.

"Leave it."

He tried to relax his hold. She was not wearing a corset beneath that shift. He did his best not to watch her chest rise and fall, the soft curve of her waist under the sheer fabric outlined against the window. He was going mad.

Christine jerked herself free of him, and held up the mask in both hands, her fingers through the eyehole.

The she scrunched the fabric in her fists and _ripped_.

Erik hissed in a breath, baring his teeth. Enraged pain snarled through him, he made a grab for Christine's arm, but she dropped the pieces to the floor and flew into him, full-force. Her slight body slammed against his chest like a bird smashing itself on a window.

He could not breathe; his control was gone, he was powerless against her questing hands, her demanding angry hands that grabbed his face, his head, without regard for the pain.

She had spread her palms out against his cheeks, the ruined and the human, her fingers following at once both the scar where his right eyebrow should have been and the normal line of his left brow, then spreading out to his temples, his nose, his ears, uncovering his secrets for herself, fingers and nails, painting him in blood in her mind.

He caught fistfuls of her hair, trying to make her stop, flailing for purchase in the tangle of curls, drowning without air. Christine was drowning him, holding his head underwater, it was like falling into another lake with a distant, unreachable, burning shore.

She pulled his head down, and then he could not help it, he was forcing her mouth open to do to her what she had done to him in the depths of the Opéra: opening her with his tongue, inside her, against the hot smooth flesh of her mouth. Claiming her for his own, only his, his Christine.

He thought he wanted her to stop, to tear herself away from his mouth and tear him apart, to repel the corruption of his soul with the purity of hers – but she would not save him. Worse, she demanded more, she would not shudder even when he tasted her kiss, mingled tea and the scent of nightflowers, and she was encouraging him, not pushing him away but driving her own small hot tongue against him, exploring him within just as her hands roamed through his hair and his scars.

The supple heat of her body pressed to his was scrambling his thoughts, his will. He could not see how to fight it, it was like water, like rage, the harder he struggled the stronger was the pull of the current, dragging him down below. He had tried so hard to block this out, to forget the heat of her flesh and the pressure of her hands guiding him to her, and – God, he had to stop her, before she was lost, before he destroyed her and himself and the world...

"Christine!"

He wrenched her away from him and held her out on outstretched arms, his body pounding with agony at the loss of her warmth.

"Christine..." he said again. And with superhuman strength, finally spoke her name: "Christine de Chagny."

She was doll-like in his grip, delicate spun glass which he was crushing in his fists. She made no move to resist, but only stared up at him in defiance, with her mouth blood-red and her lashes wet and heavy and dark. Waves of heat from her body touched his skin through his sweat-soaked shirt, shooting fire to his belly. He forced his hands away from her, stepped back.

Christine remained where she was, standing a little awkwardly, with her shoulders stiffly forward as though prepared for someone to wring her hands behind her – but her face was raised up to him.

"Erik," she said.

He bent down and grabbed the two pieces of fabric off the floor, the broken mask.

Christine made a move to take them, but he whirled angrily, thrusting her aside.

He leapt to the window, through it to take hold of the balcony railing, over it and down the wall in two swift catlike jumps. He landed on the rope, picked it up with one hand and the cloak with the other and ran from the courtyard, from the darkness, from his heart.

He sat, wrapped in his cloak, in the back of the cab as it trundled quickly towards Montmartre, with the hood pulled forward over his face as far as it would go. His teeth were chattering. The cab turned into rue Marcadet and Erik saw through the grimy glass a line of fire over the silent Montmartre cemetery. It was either the rising sun or the start of another, thunderous, riot.

o o o

Christine climbed into her bed, into the corner where it met the wall. She pulled her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around, holding herself together.

She tried squeezing her eyes shut. It changed nothing, instead it drew the pictures clearer in her mind: a masked man, an unmasked man, a face in the shadows... Raoul's ring, her anger, a ghost on the balcony. A man inside. Hands in her hair and her own mouth welcoming his, spinning her out of herself. These scenes somehow flowed together, overlaying a confusion of old memories of the ballet: Madame Giry dragging her and Meg away from the _Foyer de la Danse_ where the older girls practiced, glimpses of a rich man's flushed face and a dancer's searching, snaking hands on the back of his neck. She remembered Madame Giry's fury, the way she threw Meg and her down on the divan in her room and told them they were never, never to go in there outside practice hours, never, did they understand? They did not, but they nodded enthusiastically, terrified more by her fury than by the cause for it.

And now she knew. She was just like those girls, there was nothing precious or special about her. She had been blinded by the mask, perhaps, by the voice, by the loathing and grief and need in his eyes, so that she had not seen herself until it was too late. She could name the thing in her soul now. It was not love. It was only desire.

Only desire.

It was all right, she thought wretchedly, curling over her legs, pressing her chin to her knees. It was all right. She would call on Raoul tomorrow and ask his forgiveness, she would take his ring. She loved him, the feelings that had confused her and shamed her were nothing but desire, and she was stronger than that. She could kill the ghost.

But he was not a ghost. His name was Erik. Only a man named Erik, who did something to her soul that made it bleed.

She bit the skin of her knees through the night-dress, anything to stop her mouth from giving her away, anything to hurt. Then she felt cold air on the back of her neck and realised the shift was torn there, ripped like Erik's mask. Erik had ripped it. She had let him.

Christine dragged the night-dress over her head, covering herself with her blanket, then reached over to the drawer of her dresser to pull out the sewing box. She lit a candle. When her eyes adjusted to the light, she forced herself to thread a needle and set to mending the shift.

She made the stitches small and careful, focusing all her mind on the task. Nobody could see this, nobody would know. She was safe. It would be all right. Besides, she could not expect Madame Giry to mend her clothes and they had still not hired a maid. So she would do it herself. It was time to grow up.


	8. The Chorus Girl's Husband

Thanks to everyone who has been reading and reviewing – I owe you guys an enormous debt of gratitude for all the feedback and support, in particular to those who waited for the review boxes to start working again and actually came back to reply!

This is a longer chapter, which means it may take a bit more time than usual until the next update (fair warning). Please take a moment to review, you'll make my day!

This week's trivia: "The Chorus Girl's Husband" was an actual play, performed in the late 1860s to entertain Napoleon III and his court.

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**Chapter 8 – The Chorus Girl's Husband**

The neat, beautiful hall of the _Théâtre des Variétés_ hummed with polite anticipation, as it did before every performance. In the pit and the stalls, a restless bourgeois crowd attempted to settle in, find its opera glasses, glare at those with unduly tall hairstyles which threatened to block their view, and finally shushed each other into a respectable silence just as the lights dimmed, the conductor bowed, and the orchestra struck up the overture. Only then did the fashionably late aristocratic gentlemen start filing into the boxes, proudly escorting their diamond-studded wives, mistresses or, in the case of the less fortunate, their mothers.

Raoul de Chagny sat in his uncomfortable velvet-upholstered chair, and thought dejectedly that it would have been preferable, indeed, to have escorted his mother here rather than be forced to accompany his father, in a venture neither of them would enjoy but which seemed as unavoidable as the appearance of _Mlle Christine Daaé, formerly of the Opéra Populaire_ in the chorus line of Act I.

"I hardly think this is necessary, Father," he said grimly. "I have seen Christine dance this role before."

"As has every other gentleman in Paris," replied his father in the crisp, matter-of-fact tone which never failed to infuriate Raoul.

The Comte folded a document he had been perusing on the way in and put it away into his breast pocket, making himself comfortable in his chair. He glanced at his fob-watch, but the numbers were invisible in the darkened theatre.

"Whether you consider this to be necessary is currently of small importance. Your mother was adamant that you and I must attend tonight's performance."

Raoul made a bitter noise. "I suppose she intends this as an object-lesson for me?"

"Perhaps she hopes it will be one for both of us." The Comte's mouth quirked beneath his silver moustache with a hint of irony. "It is, after all, my duty as a father to warn you against the mistakes which you will undoubtedly continue to make in spite of anything I tell you."

"So why trouble yourself," Raoul said without bothering to hide his resentment.

"While _your_ duty as a son," the Comte continued over him, "is to listen to my elderly warnings and pretend to take heed. You will agree that this simple arrangement affords both of us a great deal more comfort than another row with your mother. I may benefit from a night away from the depressing reality of the state of our nation's army, while you may spend an evening safely contemplating Mademoiselle Daaé's more... obvious charms."

"May I remind you," Raoul said through his teeth, "That you are speaking of a woman who is to be my _wife_."

"I am speaking of the future Vicomtesse de Chagny, who will tonight be entertaining no less than eight hundred members of the audience. If this prospect offends you, I would be delighted to report to your mother that she appears to have achieved her purpose in sending us here tonight."

Raoul turned pale with anger, but the Comte went on: "If you insist on following the lamentable course of the Duc de Nevers and his dancer-wife, then that is your business."

"On that at least, we are in agreement."

"I advise you, however, as a man and as your father, that it would be far more sensible and less expensive not to wed Christine Daaé. Besides which, it would also spare me the wearisome arguments with your mother at a time when I am faced with more than enough wearisome arguments at the Assembly."

"I love her," Raoul repeated for what felt like the five hundredth time. He had long since lost hope of this making any impression on either of his parents, but at least his mother had the decency to look upset when he said it. His father merely gave him a look that suggested he had once been a young man too, and had grown out of it. Then he turned his attention to the stage.

The set was not up to the standards of the Opéra Populaire, but like the music and everything else about the _Variétés_, it made up in vivacious energy what it lacked in grandeur. Raoul had no heart for the bubbly bawdiness of tonight's musical farce, selected quite deliberately for this family outing – a piece playfully and so very subtly entitled, "The Chorus Girl's Husband".

The trouble had started after the ball at the Tuileries. He and Christine had parted terribly after the disaster with the ring, and he had spent a sleepless night berating himself for his stupidity, for his impatience. He had pushed her away and broken the fragile life they had been trying to reclaim, and he was haunted by the memory of her happy, open face as she danced in his arms. That night, he thought he had lost her for good. Yet in the morning he had found Christine waiting for him in the parlour, red-eyed and looking worse than he felt, but smiling – and then he knew she would take the ring, and they would finally, finally, start to live again.

All of that was thrown awry by the chilly reception he got from his parents after he had seen Christine back to her apartment and joined them at the Bois de Boulogne. Christine had mentioned the _Variétés_ to the Comtesse at the ball, and Raoul figured out the rest. He could not blame his parents for being wary after the scandal of the Opéra, but he could and did blame them for the things they had said to him that morning, under the pretence of a civil stroll through a park. He was irresponsible, childish, reckless. He had no self-respect and no regard for his status. He was marrying a woman who was clearly determined to be his ruin, because no respectable girl would follow a scandal by prolonging her engagement and signing on to be a dancer for the amusement of every man of fashion and means. All this was said pleasantly and very quietly, while smiling at the passersby.

"Here she is," his father said, startling Raoul from his thoughts.

Christine was the third in a line of twelve dancers, all anonymous in their little gauze skirts, ballerinas dancing the role of ballerinas. The main characters wandered around this sad little chorus, commenting and selecting and eliciting gusts of appreciative laughter from the audience, some of whom no doubt had mistresses among these same girls.

"Ah. I see you picked the prettiest of the lot."

"Stop it!" Raoul snapped hoarsely, unable to bear any more.

He turned to his father, hating himself for the pain that he knew was in his voice. "You know Christine. You have known her since she and I were children together. You welcomed her to your house when I began courting her, you _encouraged me to buy her a ring_! How can you do this now, just because she has gone back to the ballet for – for a while? Why do you betray her like this? Or do you merely enjoy humiliating me?"

"If you find it a burden to bear my jibes," the Comte said coolly, "Then think how it will feel to bear the jibes of a nation. And I warn you, they will be more cruel than either your mother or I, and care a great deal less for your tender feelings – just ask the Duc de Nevers. They laugh at this play because it amuses them. The reality amuses them even more."

"So what do you suggest I do? Force Christine to marry me tomorrow?"

"Make her your mistress."

"What!"

"I suggest," his father said calmly, "That you do not marry her at all. Make her your mistress if you must, buy her a few diamonds, bed her and put this nonsense from your head." He tapped the program with an emphatic finger. "_This _is where she wishes to be."

Raoul gave him a look of pure hatred. "Thank you, Father. I shall be sure to keep that advice in mind."

The Comte ran an impatient hand through his thick hair, silvery at the temples. "Very well. We shall have no more talk of this." His tired tone took Raoul by surprise. "I mean only to spare you pain. You believe you love the girl, very well. But you had best think hard on what your wife will bring you, and I hope, for your sake, that it is not infamy and humiliation. Do not make the mistake of thinking that because Christine Daaé is beautiful, she is also good."

"She _is_ good. And innocent. And where she may not be, it is through suffering and not through any fault of hers."

"The fault is always someone's. In the end, it hardly matters whose."

Raoul sucked in an angry breath, but before he could speak, a man in a hat and street-clothes ducked into the box, opening the curtain, and motioned urgently to his father. He was holding a rolled-up copy of _Le Soir_. The headline shouted: "_Ambassador snubbed at Ems: Prussia mocks French honour!_"

Without another word the Comte stood up and left.

Raoul sagged back against the chair, staring at the stage with unseeing eyes. The farce continued, the audience laughed, he sat there and tried to convince himself that he was imagining the curious eyes watching him from the other boxes.

He looked down to the front of the stage, where Christine was miming something terribly amusing at the stalls, and felt an upsurge of loathing for those laughing, distorted faces, for those fancy hats and powdered noses and for the whole of Parisian society. Then he thought of the end of the performance, when he would go backstage to see Christine – and would have to fight through the familiar spectacle of men vying for their chance at the dressing rooms, for their little piece of ballet, all nicely wrapped in gauze and tulle.

He tried his best to pretend that he did not care.

o o o

Christine dumped her satchel on the bench beside Meg's in the busy dressing room, and began to pack her things: spare tights and legwarmers, shoes, ribbons, greasepaint for the stage. She felt faint with fatigue. Somebody jostled her from behind but she ignored it; everyone was in a hurry to go home.

"I ought to take the omnibus," Meg said. She was struggling to roll her long hair up into a chignon. "Pherhapsh... " She removed the hairpin from her mouth. "Perhaps Raoul will want you to join him for supper."

"Here, let me do that."

Christine took the pin and reached over to fix it in Meg's hair. "Don't be silly. If we go to supper, Raoul will simply take the carriage past our building." She rubbed her calves. "He might have to carry me out of it, though..."

"Christine, I would not want to intrude—"

"Who's Raoul?" chirped a girl next to them.

Christine turned around: it was Blanche, another of the _Variétés_ chorus girls, a curious brunette with pretty, wide-set eyes and angular cheekbones that seemed rather popular with her male admirers. She was still in her leotard, but she had removed the gauze skirt and was swinging it from her wrist, playing idly with the string-ties.

Christine saw the girl notice the diamond on her finger, and instinctively covered it with her other hand. Blanche grinned, revealing a row of perfect little teeth.

"He must be pretty rich, anyhow!"

"He's our former patron, the Vicomte de Chagny," another dancer broke in – Helena Weiss, a fellow refugee from the Opéra Populaire. She had inherited her large-boned frame from her German father, and suffered continually because her height kept her out of so many perfectly symmetrical chorus line-ups.

"May I see?" she asked Christine, nodding at the ring.

"Uhh... Of course."

Christine held out her hand obediently, feeling embarrassed as a gaggle of dancers collected around her and Meg, drawn irresistibly by the sparkle of the diamond. She began to wish she had left the thing at home, but that would have hurt Raoul, and she did not want that.

"Is he handsome?"

Blanche's question caused a storm of laughter: she was not known for her discretion, and her own lovers seemed to be as notoriously unattractive as they were rich. Blanche made a face at the others:

"I was only asking! It doesn't matter, the uglier they are the more they'll adore you. And the prettier you'll look beside them."

"Christine should know!" Helena Weiss winked at Christine and Meg, making Meg frown and take a defensive step forward.

"What do you mean?" Christine asked quietly, but she knew exactly what Helena meant. Her lips felt dry.

Meg came to her rescue: "If you must know, yes, the Vicomte is very handsome. Now if you'll excuse us, we have to get our things."

She tried to take Christine's arm, but Christine shrugged her off; she was staring at Helena, who became increasingly more uncomfortable.

"I only meant," Helena stumbled, "I only meant – you know. About the Ghost." She brightened, "God, Christine, you're such a child. Nobody cares if you had him. It's not like we don't understand!"

She gestured around in an appeal to the gathered girls, most of whom were nodding agreement. "_Merde_ – if I had a tutor who could put me up on stage like that, managers or no managers, straight to the top, you can bet I wouldn't care about his face either!"

"Except that he burned down your opera house," said another girl from the back, "and killed those people, no?"

"And left you girls without a job," Blanche picked up, with some sympathy. "Something of a madman, if you ask me."

"She did not ask you," Meg said. "Excuse us." Christine felt her trying to tug her in the direction of their satchels, away from Helena.

"Meg, let me be."

Christine felt bile her mouth with hatred; she could not stop it. All her exhaustion and pain and suffering had been building inside her without her knowledge and now here was this smiling _imbecile _of a girl who thought she knew the whole story.

"You _don't_ know!" she exploded at Helena's surprised face, hearing the shrill ugly note in her voice, aware of Meg's panicky expression but unable to stop herself now.

"You don't know anything, you never will! How dare you! You think I was the lover of a murderer? You think it was my fault all those people died? As if it were not bad enough that the papers wrote all those lies, now you too believe them! Now you too will spread these things about me and laugh behind my back and call me _l'amourette du Fantôme_! Do you think I'm deaf? Or stupid? I can hear you, every time, I can hear you! I can hear you!"

"Christine, stop it," Meg was saying, "Stop it right now, please, we have to go!"

"I can hear you..." Christine finished, abruptly feeling drained of all energy. She stared back at the uncomprehending faces around her and wished them all quietly, painlessly dead.

"You're right," Helena said after a moment, without any apparent anger. "You should have been in the opera."

Then she turned around and simply walked off. The others milled around for a while, then dispersed, shrugging and muttering among themselves.

Christine sank down onto the bench and dropped her head in her hands, feeling horrible. In the wake of the dissipating rage there remained only the painful embarrassment of the tantrum, her own words echoing disgustingly in her head. She did not know what had caused the sudden explosion; these things they said about her about had never bothered her, she was not so fragile...

Perhaps that was because before, there had been no truth to their words. Christine Daaé, the Phantom's Whore. Had she not touched his face in the night? With her hands, in her room?

"Christine... Raoul is here."

Christine looked up at the sound of Meg's soft voice, and saw Raoul coming towards her. He looked tired and somewhat harassed, but when he saw her, he smiled.

"I would not call the play a masterpiece – but you were wonderful in it." He nodded to Meg, including her politely, "Both of you."

Christine made an effort to compose herself, returning his smile. "Thank you for coming tonight."

"It was my pleasure."

She thought she heard a tight, pained note in Raoul's voice, but in the next moment he was back to his courteous self, getting their bags and helping them make their way out and asking about the performance.

They fought through the bustling theatre to the stage door; then they were finally outside, in the fresh air. Christine breathed a sigh of relief. She had not realised how suffocated she had felt between the blaze of the stage footlights and the crowded, stuffy dressing-room.

The evening was very warm but pleasant, without the oppressive heat that could sometimes stifle the city in July. The Boulevard Montmartre danced with lights; couples strolled by, arm-in-arm, their chatter mingling with laughter and music, the squeaking of carriage springs and the clack-clack of horseshoes against the paving stones. Christine allowed it all to wash over her, glad to be an observer at last, a mute audience for somebody else's orchestra, anonymous in the night.

"I'm afraid I don't have my carriage," Raoul apologised. "I was obliged to accompany my father, but he, uh... He left. Early."

"He left without you?" Christine tried to keep her tone light, but she had heard the same pained note in his voice again, and knew at once that this had something to do with it.

"I believe he had urgent business to attend to. Something political."

"Oh." Christine's throat constricted with dread. "It was not ... because of the play?"

"No," Raoul said much too quickly. "Just politics. You know my father; Monsieur Ollivier calls and he comes running."

He had never been any good at lying, even as a child, but Christine could not bring herself to question him further. She accepted the excuse with a faint nod.

Meg touched her elbow. "Christine, I should go. The omnibus."

"I thought perhaps we could go to supper here," Raoul said, including Meg in the invitation. "The _Café de Suède_ isn't far. They say it is really quite good."

"Thank you, but I must go home," Meg said. "My mother will be expecting me."

Christine attempted to talk her into staying, but she had to agree it would not do to keep Madame Giry wondering where her daughter was at this late hour. In the end Raoul helped her to hail a cab and the two of them watched Meg wave as the horse trotted off, the painted number of the hansom winking red as it passed a streetlamp. Christine had a fleeting crazy desire to call it back, to go home and collapse into bed and just sleep.

There was an awkward pause as she and Raoul looked at one another, each aware of the rare moment of being together alone, hidden in the peculiar privacy of a busy boulevard. Christine thought he would kiss her, but instead he only offered her his arm and they walked on towards the group of cafés further along the road, the ornate façades nested together like prettily etched volumes on a bookshelf.

"It _was_ the play," Raoul admitted after a few steps.

Christine shuddered once, as with cold. "It is only the ballet, Raoul, in a respectable theatre." She strove to keep the hurt from her voice. "Not the can-can in some filthy _guingette_."

"I know that."

"I have been a dancer for most of my life, there is nothing else I can do half as well—"

"Except sing."

"No," Christine said quickly. "Not that. No. I dance, that is what I do. Like Meg, like the others."

"But I'm not marrying the others!" Raoul caught her hands, stopping her, looking at her face. "Christine, I don't know what to tell him. I can't fight for you if I don't understand what it is you want! Why are you doing this? This ballet, this self-torture?"

A laugh escaped before Christine could stop it, a nervous sound that was part exhaustion, part surprise. "Self-torture?"

"Isn't it? Why else would you be up on stage every night, under the eyes of all those leering men and God only knows who else, near-collapsing with exhaustion?"

"Because we need to pay rent! Madame Giry and Meg and I, we need to live. Somehow."

She saw the bewilderment in his eyes before he could speak the words: frustration and pity and the promises to give her a life where she would never need to think about rent again.

She stopped him with a wry, sad look. "You think me stubborn. But Raoul... I cannot leave them now. Please understand. Nor can I ask you to give them money to make up for what my dancing brings; you know Madame Giry would never take it, no matter how bad the need."

"That is nothing but bourgeois pride! How long will this continue, Christine? You promised me this was only until November, and then it would be over and we would be married and gone from here! What happened to all that?"

Christine felt a painful stinging in her eyes. "Don't."

"Don't what? You gave me your word!"

"I know I did, Raoul, and I intend to keep it! But I cannot leave them now. Not yet. Don't make me do this, I beg you."

Raoul shook his head, subsiding. He let out a long breath.

"It is July, Christine. What can change between now and November?"

Christine gave him a slow, tremulous smile. "If we are fortunate... Perhaps _I_ can."

The glass-panelled doors of the _Café de Suède_ in front of them flew open, engulfing them in a sudden, complete wave of noise as a torrent of people streaming out of the café blocked their way. There were ladies and gentlemen in elegant theatre clothes, and some others among them carrying newspapers and shouting something incomprehensible in the general din.

"What is going on here?" Raoul asked one of the men, a young bohemian-looking fellow with feverish eyes.

"The bastards have done it!" He thrust a paper at Raoul, the same copy of _Le Soir_ that he had seen earlier. "Bloody Bismarck's work, you can bet on it! This has his stink all over it!"

Others yelled; someone broke into a verse of the _Marsellaise_.

"What's happening?" Christine caught Raoul's sleeve. "Why are they all shouting? What's going on?"

The bohemian fellow turned to her and yelled, "War, that's what! They've wanted it for years, well now they shall have it – and we're going to see some Prussian blood!"

"Blood?" Christine whispered, staring at the tumult in dismay. "Why do they want war?"

Her gaze stopped on one figure in the crowd.


	9. An Amusing Night Out

Once again, thanks to everyone who was so patient with this site's downtime last week and came back to review! Extra special thanks to those who left such detailed, thoughful comments – these are always an honour and a thrill.

**_Please note that apparently this site is going to be experiencing downtime once AGAIN this weekend (grr!) so I wanted to get this chapter posted before that happens. It also means that you may not be able to leave a review for a while, but I would really appreciate it if you could come back and review when the site is back up. _****_Thanks so much!_**

This week's trivia: Edgar Degas used to spell his name as 'de Gas'.

* * *

**Chapter 9 – An Amusing Night Out**

The _Café de Suède_ turned out to be a large, boisterous establishment. Erik looked around as he, Fiaux and Choury came through the doors, already beginning to regret having agreed to spend an evening in this social hell. A crowded street was just another kind of solitude, an office was, well... an office was bearable. But a café bubbling with coquettish laughter, conversations, the knock of absinthe glasses against marble tabletops – this was something else entirely. The room was furnished lavishly with couches, gilded mirrors, a mosaic floor and white stucco garlands winding around the ceiling lamps. The bar was of immaculate dark wood, and each booth was filled with patrons, male and female, many looking as though they too had just come from the theatre.

"I must say I'm grateful to you for the suggestion, Andersson," Jacques Choury said as they found an empty booth and sat down. "I've forgotten how much I do enjoy the theatre: I have not laughed so well in many months."

"Oh yes," Vincent Fiaux agreed readily, grinning from ear to ear. "It was quite marvellous, especially when the husband's brother – Armand was it? – Armand discovers her little secret and everybody is quite..."

"Indeed," Erik cut him off. "I am delighted you enjoyed the play, gentlemen. I only regret that I was not able to join you."

"You mustn't let old Duchamp work you into the ground," Fiaux frowned. "He may look innocuous, but just let him see you're willing to work nights and he'll be piling you with sketches and calculations enough to bury you alive."

"Still sending you to Sedan, is he?" asked Choury, after the waiter left with their drink orders.

Erik made a cynical noise at the thought of being 'sent' anywhere. "I have chosen to examine the site in person."

"A bit of a dull town, I hear," Fiaux said. He tugged at his stiff collar, clearly not used to such formal attire. "Not even a theatre."

"Indeed? Then it shall make a pleasant change from Paris."

Choury looked amused. "Come, Andersson, confess it: there is another man entirely under that brooding façade you insist on showing the world! A chap who recommends a night at the _Variétés_, even if he steadfastly refuses to share it with his colleagues, is hardly the strait-laced workhorse Duchamp believes he has found."

"I confess it freely," Erik responded without a trace of irony, "I am in fact a rogue and a profligate, who loves nothing so well as a _Variétés_ chorus girl."

Fiaux and Choury roared with laughter.

Erik looked back at them tolerantly. It was amazing how simply a truth could be masked, even a dangerous, closely-guarded truth. And yet he knew very well the gamble he was taking in saying those words, the same gamble he had taken in recommending the _Variétés_ as an amusing night out. He could scarcely admit to himself how desperately he longed for them to talk of the dancers he could not see now, to paint for him the images which had sprung up unbidden before his eyes when he first read the terse lines in the _Journal_ advertising the fate of the former employees of the Opéra Populaire.

The familiar name had stared back at him from the paper, branding the script into his vision: _Mlle Christine Daaé has signed on with the Théâtre des Variétés._

He knew he should not be here now, hoping secretly for a word about her from these men – these strangers who somehow could look at her, up on stage, and yet see nothing at all. All of that had to be put well behind him, he could not afford to indulge the dangerous memories of the encounter with ... with the future Vicomtesse de Chagny. This new existence as an architect seemed to be shaping itself quite without his interference, and Erik had every intention of letting it continue thus, well aware that the smallest slip on his part, the smallest glance backwards, could make it unravel like a falling lasso. He had come much too close with the terrible error about Madame Giry and the residence of the old Comte and Comtesse de Chagny at Saint-Cloud. There would be no more mistakes.

Yet despite all these well-intentioned promises, despite all the effort he expended on creating sketches and models and keeping every moment of his life occupied with thoughts of the new courthouse he was to design for the provincial town of Sedan, he could not escape. His nights had become a writhing confusion of feverish, twisted sheets; he kept seeing his hands clutching Christine's bare shoulders in the silence of her room, kept hearing her angel's voice twisted beyond recognition by the discordant notes of his _Don Juan Triumphant_.

Before, he had found some measure of comfort in persuading himself that it was all over, that Christine was free of him now even if he would never be free of her. The memories of that night, of her wounded eyes and her fingers on his flesh demanding revenge, ripped that assurance from his soul and left him waking naked and terrified, longing to hold her and suffocating with the shame of it.

"Ah, Choury! I say, it has been a while!"

An impeccably dressed gentleman in his mid-thirties had stopped by their table and was enthusiastically shaking Jacques Choury's hand in both of his, beaming with the unfeigned joy of one seeing an old and much missed friend. A tall blonde girl behind him, evidently his companion, stood forgotten and ill at ease.

"Good God, de Gas!" Choury gripped the gentleman's hand delightedly, getting up. "How the hell are you? I've been hearing the world of you ever since Italy – the Salon now, is it?"

"Quite right, the Salon – trapped in the gilded cage among the usual suspects." The man laughed with a hint of self-deprecation. "I swear, they will still be painting Ruth and Semiramis and good old Apollo a century from now!"

"Forgive me," Choury said, suddenly recalling the other two at the table. "Allow me to introduce you to my colleagues – gentlemen, my good friend Edgar de Gas, another veteran of the old Beaux-Arts college days and I'm proud to say, the most talented of us all."

"Now really, Choury..."

"No no, it is quite true, I assure you! Edgar, my colleagues: Monsieur Vincent Fiaux," Fiaux rose briefly in his seat to shake the gentleman's hand, "And Monsieur Erik Andersson, with whom I daresay you should have a great deal in common: he is quite the theatre enthusiast!"

Erik felt every muscle in his neck go rigid with the effort of not turning his face aside to the shadowed safety of the wall at his right, knowing that in any case the action could not conceal his bandage from the curious eyes of the newcomer. He attempted a civil greeting, hating the enforced contact of a handshake and the man's clear, expressive eyes studying the bandaged half of his face with the practiced gaze of a painter.

"A pleasure to meet you, monsieur," de Gas nodded, releasing Erik at last from the almost physical agony of this scrutiny.

It was only then, while attempting to regain his composure, that Erik's gaze slid over the girl who had accompanied de Gas and he had a shock.

She was not looking at the bandage. Her grey eyes were aimed directly at his face.

Erik forced his gaze to unfocus and turned his head, pretending he had not seen her, but his heart was racing as though death was a step away and approaching at the gallop.

A ballet girl.

He could not recall her name – a German name, Eismann or Weissman or something of the sort – one of Madame Giry's charges from the Opéra Populaire. Weiss, he decided, that was her name, Helena Weiss. The one who would always be relegated to the back lines because of her height, but who had been cast in _Don Juan_ because there were no chorus lines in the flamenco. This Mademoiselle Weiss had only to gasp now and point at him, shrieking with the all the repressed lung power of the eternally-mute ballet girl – "The Phantom of the Opera! He's here!" – and he was dead. Trapped in the corner of the booth he knew there was no escape.

He stared into his absinthe, seeing green murder. A confusion of sound told him the man de Gas had taken a seat at their booth and Erik did not dare look to see whether the girl had remained with him. He kept staring into the drink until with a start, he realised there was a conversation going on among the others, and nobody was shrieking at all.

"Very true, Andersson here was just telling us – what _was_ it you were saying about the lyrics?"

Erik looked up at the four pairs of eyes turned towards him. If there was a hell, he was quite certain it would involve the eyes of a multitude staring at him expectantly in exactly this way. He tried not to think of the scream that seemed to hover inevitably above the four of them, like an exclamation point only he could see: _He's here!_

"The lyrics?" he ground out the words, cursing himself for the worst sort of imbecile. Surely they could hear the frantic harshness in his voice.

"Yes, you said before, the lyrics had been written by, what was his name now..."

"Halévy," Erik heard himself say, quite calmly. "An impressively witty libretto, despite the lamentable title."

"Oh, you are acquainted with Ludovic Halévy? A good friend of mine," de Gas enthused, giving Erik the impression that all of them were part of an absurd slow-motion farce, a comedy about the great fire of Rome: the world was burning down around them while they talked of operettas. The scene lacked only a fiddle. Any second now the girl Helena would scream.

"I regret I have not had the honour of meeting Monsieur Halévy in person," Erik replied.

"A pity, then. A man of rare intelligence – is he not, mademoiselle? A mutual friend," de Gas explained with a warm smile for the company. "Ludovic did me the favour of an introduction to Mademoiselle Weiss."

The girl's gaze lingered on Erik briefly, and then, to his astonishment, continued past him. She rejoined the conversation, which turned to an animated discussion with Fiaux about the design of the set, as though the concept of sharing a café table with the erstwhile Phantom of the Opera had proved too bizarre for her to consider seriously.

Was it possible, Erik thought numbly, that she had not recognised him? Could it be that even a dancer who had seen him unmasked in _Don Juan _could not see that faceless monster in the gentleman he now pretended to be? The audience had seen only his deformity, a brief glimpse of horror, but the dancers had seen the other side, the undamaged side – and yet this girl laughed and chatted amiably, and did not seem to know him. Had he changed?

Perhaps she was merely waiting for her chance to blackmail him. Erik considered how much it would cost to buy her silence. It was in the midst of those unpleasant calculations that a shout came from the middle of the room – "_Le Soir!_ It's on the front page, gentlemen!"

Ripples of excitement flew from around the speaker, as from an epicentre of a quake, and everyone in the room seemed at once on their feet, clamouring to see the paper. Erik heard shouts of "At last!" and "Ha, I knew it could not go on this way!" and then the paper was being passed from hand to hand, the headline blared across the café in a hundred different voices: "Ambassador snubbed at Ems!" and "Prussia mocks French honour!"

"You fools!" shrilled a young woman somewhere, "This is Bismarck's doing, I tell you! This is exactly what he wants, a war to unite Prussia against us, and we're flying smack into his trap! Hold, I say!"

The crowd drowned her out; Erik felt finally his endurance snap under the pressure of so much noise, unable to stand another minute in the exploding crowd of the café.

He caught Choury's eye with some thought to explain his departure, but the man was not watching him; like everyone else he seemed determined to get his hands on the paper and see for himself this scandalous injury to France's pride that seemed cause enough for war.

Erik shoved people aside with no regard for their yelps and stumbles, cutting clear through the press of bodies with the blood-maddened urge of a caged animal trying to get out.

He could see the twin doors in front of him now but his progress was excruciatingly slow, forced as he was to push against the current of the movement – until someone outside shouted "_Le Soir_! _Le Soir_! Prussia throws down the gauntlet!". Within a heartbeat the direction was reversed, as people headed for the doorway where the fortunate paper boy was about to do spectacular business.

"_Le Soir_! Outrageous telegram from the King of Prussia! Full text inside!"

Cursing and fighting for a breath, Erik finally broke free of the doors and out onto the blessed openness of the boulevard.

He cast about for the most promising direction for locating a cab, his long strides taking him away from the worst of the café crowd, but at that moment other paper-criers emerged as though from underground, hawking their papers, and more people spilled from each doorway nearby, joining into bigger crowds and cutting off all obvious routes of retreat.

Erik looked back and forth along the teeming, gas-lit boulevard, searching for a cab or carriage or horse or anything at all that could take him away from here – until he turned and the pulse seemed to stop in his veins.

Not twenty paces from him, across the swelling torrent of hats and hairstyles and noses and opened mouths, there was a face he would recognise among millions: the only living face in a crowd of ghosts.

Christine; his Christine, on the arm of her Vicomte de Chagny.

It was too much.

Forsaking pride and sense, Erik stumbled backwards and leapt onto the back of a carriage, then another and another and then he was free and he ran, feeling Christine's familiar gaze all around him, her hair, her cheeks, her mouth, her beloved, perfect voice swelling in his chest. It seemed to him that he was condemned to repeat this horror again and again, each time fleeing wildly before her, always yearning fatally to stay.

He thought he heard her cry out his name, "_Erik!_" – but it could not be. He could not hear anything in this white noise of people, he had to escape the madness of Paris. _Sedan_, he recalled, turning into a cobbled alleyway. The first train in the morning would take him safely towards Sedan.

o o o

"_Erik..._"

The space in the crowd was closed over by the push-and-shove of chattering, excited people, and it now seemed impossible that someone who had stood there a moment ago could have simply disappeared. Yet Christine knew: he had been there. He had seen her. She had felt the frantic stab in her chest and the blood rushing hot to her face as their eyes met, caught together in that sudden, unguarded moment.

She had not meant to call out. His name was lost in the rumble of the crowded boulevard and the wheeled traffic, but she had felt it on her lips even if she had not heard it herself, and it frightened her that she liked it: the feel of her mouth shaping his name.

A pressure on her elbow made her look up.

"Raoul..." Christine whispered, coming to herself. And this name, also, was a guilty ache in her mouth.

Raoul's eyes found hers; his face wore a blank, tight-jawed expression. He had seen him, too.

He turned with a jerky movement, away from the spot where Erik had disappeared.

"Let's go home, Little Lotte. Let me take you home."

Christine sobbed once, and nodded.

They slipped through the crowd as easily as children through water, unmindful of everything except each other. There was the same bitter taste of the sea burning Christine's throat, the same shortness of breath as she had felt so many years ago, racing with this same boy along the black shoreline of the night-time sea. She had never been sure, then, how long she could keep running.

_I love you!_ she wanted to tell him, and could not say it. _Forgive me_ – but she could not even say that.

In the hansom cab, they sat close together on the padded seat as the driver struggled through worsening traffic. Raoul had his face turned away from her, watching the façades. He stopped the cab at one point, near a news kiosk, and bought a copy of _Le Soir_. The paper lay open before him the rest of the way, but Christine knew he was not reading.

_Please_, she begged somebody, neither her father nor God but some undefinable deity like the blind frozen angels at her father's tomb, _please hear me_. Take my heart, please, _please_ take this worthless heart. Take it so I cannot hurt this boy, this man. Destroy me. Make me somebody else.

"I'm so sorry." She barely heard Raoul's whisper above the swish of the wheels of the cab and the rustle of paper. "Christine, forgive me."

"My God," she said, shuddering. "What for?"

"You warned me, and I didn't listen. You said... You said if you sang in the Phantom's opera, he would take you."

"Did I," Christine faltered. _He'll take me, I know... We'll be parted forever. _"I ... don't remember."

"You were right. I swore to protect you and instead I put you right in his path. If the Phantom had killed us both, it would have been because of me, only me. My foolishness."

"Raoul, don't say that..."

"And if we're free now, it is because of you. I owe you my life. And..." Raoul swallowed harshly, as though determined to get the words out without anger, yet Christine could not help but hear the hurt in his voice:

"He doesn't know it, but so does _he_. He's alive. You freed the Phantom, too."

"His name is Erik," said Christine before she could catch herself.

There was a long, empty pause. Then the cab jolted, throwing them both forward, and stopped moving. Christine saw that they had arrived outside her apartment building.

"When," Raoul asked finally, "did you find out his name?"


	10. Ablutions

Okay, I'm sure you're all getting tired of my starting each chapter the same way, but I can't go without thanking everyone yet again for being so patient with this site's problems and taking the time to write a review. Thank you so, so much!

A marthon chapter this time. It's so long in fact that there will be no trivia (cue sighs of relief). Don't get spoiled, now, the next one will be shorter. ;)

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**Chapter 10 – Ablutions**

"_Maman?_"

Meg peered around the dark, empty parlour in consternation. She had expected to find her mother home long before her, late as she had been getting back from the theatre because of all the unexpected traffic on the Boulevard Montmartre and around it. Yet there was no sign of Madame Giry anywhere.

Meg frowned, eventually deciding her mother must have gone out to visit her cousin again, and had been detained by the same confusion of people and carriages that she herself had encountered on the way home.

She lit the gas and made her way through the dining-room to the tiny kitchen, where the girl who came in to do the cooking in the afternoons had left a pot of lamb stew on the stove and some fresh crusty bread. Meg helped herself to the stew: it smelled delicious, reminding her that she had not eaten since long before the performance. Taking advantage of her mother's absence, she broke off a chunk of bread instead of slicing it neatly the way Madame Giry insisted was proper. There was no butter, so she just put the kettle on for tea, and took her food back to the dining-room, setting it on the table before the little balcony.

She reached over to pull the door open, letting in the night sounds and the warm, motionless air of the courtyard. The latch had been broken for some time; Meg made a mental note to ask her mother to buy a new one when she next went shopping. She took another spoonful of the stew. It was warm and thick and perhaps a trifle overcooked, but after a night on stage it was wonderful luxury: the meat was so tender it came apart in her mouth, the potatoes and onions were rich, and Meg felt a languid warmth seeping pleasantly through her body, all the way down to her sore feet.

There were some papers stacked in the centre of the table. She idly pulled the top sheet towards her as she ate, unfolding it and scanning the hurried-looking calligraphy. It was a note addressed to Madame Giry, and too late Meg thought that perhaps she ought not to be reading it – but as it was lying opened and in full view, she decided it could not be anything private.

_Dear Mme Giry,_ it began;

_Please be advised that, following the completion of restoration work on the East wing, your maintenance duties will now include an additional two Corridors, two Practice Rooms and a small Foyer. I refer you to the attached documents regarding staff supervision..._

Meg stared at the note.

With a sinking feeling she thought of her mother's hands: the once-smooth skin reddened and dry. How could she have missed it?

So this was where the extra money had been coming from.

She had wondered about that, but foolishly had not made the obvious connection. Her mother's position at the box office of the _Théâtre Français_ was not well-paid, and the first paycheque from the _Variétés_ was not due until the end of the month. The money for the ruinously expensive _pointe_ shoes and other gear to re-equip her and Christine for the ballet had to have come from another job. A job supervising the cleaning at the _Théâtre Français_.

She imagined her mother, with her stiff back and her graceful dancer's arms, joining the other women at scrubbing the marble stairs of the _Théâtre Français_ – while she and Christine gossipped in the _Variétés_ dressing room after a night on the stage.

Meg shoved the letter quickly back in its place, her cheeks burning with mortification at her own selfishness. She was a spoiled child. How could she not have seen it? She was dancing nights and sleeping in late, so content in her new life at the _Variétés_ that she had not even thought to ask whether it was enough. It should not be her mother doing this. It should be her and maybe Christine; they were younger and fitter and if somebody had to spend hours mopping floors or removing cobwebs then it should certainly be them and not her mother. Meg berated herself for not having realised that all these supposed social visits in the evenings were nothing but an attempt to spare her and Christine what Madame Giry undoubtedly considered unnecessary worries.

There was the sound of a key in the front door.

Meg hastened to get it, thinking along the way of how best to inform her mother that she did not consider those worries to be at all unnecessary and that...

The door opened a moment before she got to it, revealing not Madame Giry but Christine. Her eyes were unnaturally bright, and she held one hand to her ribs as though she had run all the way up the stairs.

"Christine!" Meg exclaimed, startled. "What happened? I thought you would be at supper – you're back so early..."

Christine fumbled with the door, trying to lock it. "Nothing," she said. "Nothing has happened."

Meg continued to look at her sceptically, until Christine could not help a weak smile:

"Honestly, it is nothing. There was a crowd at the café, we could not stay – people everywhere from Boulevard Montmartre all the way home. I should have been back sooner but for all the carriages. Everyone is excited about something in the paper; there were men who kept shouting that they want to see Prussian blood, they want war... It frightened me. Raoul – Raoul brought me home. That is all."

"All right," Meg said uncertainly. She watched as Christine changed her shoes and put away her fan and gloves into the chest of drawers by the door.

"Is your mother not back yet?"

"Christine..." Meg took a quick breath. "I need to show you something."

She went through the double doors into the dining-room, gesturing at Christine to follow, and handed her the note from the table.

"What's this?"

Christine took it and scanned the writing quickly, then bit her lip. "Maintenance duties... Your mother took on another job? Meg! Why did she not tell us?"

"Perhaps she would have," Meg said with some bitterness. "If we had thought to ask."

They stared at the note in silence. After a moment, Meg put it back on the table. She nodded in the direction of the kitchen:

"There is stew for dinner, Josette left it. And – oh curse it! The _tea_!"

They sprinted to the kitchen, just in time to see the last few wisps of steam rise from the kettle. Meg shut off the gas and lifted the kettle off the stove, staring at it in dismay. The bottom was black.

"_Merde!_"

Christine flinched at the word.

Meg slammed the blackened kettle back onto the stove, where it promptly tipped over, rolled, and crashed to the tiled floor with a tremendous noise.

The sharp clang of a fork against the kitchen water pipes told them of their neighbours' displeasure.

Christine picked up the kettle and set it gently on the benchtop. There was now a dent in one side.

"Come, Meg, let's eat. We'll get it fixed, later."

"I just wish I could do something to help. Instead of ..." Meg winced at the dented kettle.

"I know."

Christine ladled some stew into a bowl and they went back to the dining-room. The apartment smelled of overheated metal.

They ate the cooling stew without speaking, studying with undue attention every bit of potato or meat.

"It's revolting," Meg said after a while.

Christine shrugged absently. "It's not that bad..."

"Not the stew. This." She gestured at the letter on the table. "I am a woman grown, Christine, and my mother is breaking her back to buy my ballet shoes... What am I going to do when she gets older? In a few months you'll be married, and—"

"I am not getting married."

Meg's eyes flicked to Christine. She was staring at her bread, crumbling it with a fingernail.

There was no ring on her finger.

Meg felt her stomach clench. "Your ring... What have you done?"

"I gave it back."

Christine's fingertips pressed the bread methodically, squashing it. She spoke, as if recalling a dream:

"I put the ring in his hand, and I closed his fingers over it... And then I left."

"Why?" Meg breathed, dismayed.

Christine raised her head with a wretched, lopsided smirk. "So that I can never give it away to someone else."

The heartache was so plain in her face that Meg felt tears well in her own eyes, the sharp pain of helplessness.

"Christine," she tried, "the other ring – that was not your fault... It was a kindness to leave it for the Phantom, it was good of you, it wasn't a betrayal, it wasn't wrong! You are innocent."

"Innocent!" Christine made a painful, humourless sound entirely unlike laughter.

"You are. And you ought to tell Raoul about that ring, you have nothing to hide. He will understand, you'll see. Then this weight will be lifted from your soul and you two will make up, and you will no longer fear that you might betray him somehow. The Phantom hurt you so badly—"

Christine rose from her seat so fast that the chair flew back, squeaking on the floorboards.

"I need a bath."

"What? Now?" Meg stared at her, nonplussed. "Are you upset with me?"

"No, I just need a bath. I feel dirty."

Meg caught her wrist gently before she could flee. "I'm sorry, that was stupid. It isn't any of my business, really. I didn't mean to lecture."

Christine nodded rigidly. "I know. It's not you, Meg. I'm just – in a foul mood this evening. Everything I say ends up hurting somebody."

She leaned down to give Meg a brief hug.

"If there's anything I can do..." Meg began uselessly.

Christine formed a strained smile. "Thank you."

She started towards her room, then turned back around: "There is something. Do you remember – when we were little, at the Opéra..."

"Of course I do." Meg grinned. "You had this hat, when I first met you. Do you remember it, with the turned-up sides? I thought it was the strangest thing I had ever seen. You let me borrow it."

"Meg..."

Christine stood framed against the dark doorway, small and somehow abandoned.

"Yes?"

"Was I happy?"

Meg felt at a loss.

"Well, that was right after your father died..."

Christine flinched. "Afterwards."

"Of course you were. That is – not all the time, but often... Like when you'd come back from the chapel, and you would be singing to yourself, and smiling..."

Meg trailed off at the expression on Christine's face. "Oh. The 'Angel of Music'. The Phantom, I mean. But those were not the only times!—"

"Yes," Christine said slowly. "They are the ones I remember, too. Every one of them a lie. There are no angels. The Phantom is a man, Meg, a man called Erik. And I am not innocent."

There was an awkward silence. Then Christine made an apologetic gesture. "I'll be in the bath."

o o o

Erik thought he had been completely silent as he made his way up the wooden stairs to his room above the store.

"Ah, our recluse!" Louise Gandon stepped out onto the landing in her dressing gown, holding a candle.

Apparently not silent enough.

"_Bon soir_, madame," Erik said, gritting his teeth. There ought to be a law, he thought, against having the way to one's own quarters barred at two o'clock in the morning, after one had run like a maniac through half of traffic-flooded Paris to get there. He felt alternately hot and cold, his blood throbbing with the image of Christine on the arm of her rightful lover. It was not right that it still hurt this badly. It was not right.

"There is some hot water left for a bath," Louise Gandon informed him, gesturing with her chin in the direction he had just come from. The bathing facilities, such as they were, consisted of a shed that housed an iron tub and – the landlord's pride and joy – running water that had to be collected into a barrel and heated in a basin over the stove.

"I am glad to hear it," Erik replied. "Now if you'll excuse me, I should like to retire for the night. May I?.."

His attempt to get past her was unceremoniously barred by a formidable arm ending in a dark, callused palm.

"There is water," she repeated firmly. "For a bath."

"Madame, I'm obliged to inform you that if you do not step out of my way I cannot be held responsible for my actions. I have had the devil's own time of getting here and I should like to have some peace."

Louise Gandon made an exasperated gesture:

"For pity's sake! I don't see how you can have the manners of a count, and not know a hint when it stops you on the stairs. I'll be plain then: You stink."

She pointed to his feet. Erik looked down and saw that his shoes and trousers were, indeed, spattered with enough horse manure to remind him that running among the carriages had not been the most sane, or sanitary, method of avoiding the chaos of the footpaths.

He felt himself turning beet-red.

"I warn you," Louise concluded in the same exasperated tone, "I will not tolerate filth in this house. Scrubbing horse-shit off these stairs is no picnic, believe you me. I don't know what you and your Opéra 'demoiselle get up to these days but I tell you this: she wouldn't want you in her bed smelling the way you do! Just you go on downstairs and get clean."

"I can guarantee," Erik said with the ice of murder in his voice, "that the temporary presence of manure on my person has no bearing on the permanent absence of Mademoiselle Daaé from my bed. It would be... prudent, Madame Gandon, not to bring up the subject again. Ever. Good night."

He tipped his hat witheringly, turned on his pungent heel, and proceeded up the stairs.

"Very well," Louise Gandon said behind him. "In that case you will kindly pack your things and move out."

"It so happens," Erik said, turning his head briefly, "that I am due to leave Paris tomorrow in any case. I had been intending to maintain my apartment here until my return, but I should be just as glad to be spared the expense."

He had called her bluff.

The look she gave him was not pleasant. Erik had no trouble imagining the struggle going on within her now, suspended as she was between the threat of losing his money and the humiliation of allowing him to pollute her precious staircase.

He gave her a cold smile, relishing this small triumph. A few seconds' stand-off ended, as he had known it would, in a filthy curse from her and the thump of a closing door.

Erik unlocked the door to his own room and proceeded inside.

Not fifteen minutes later, and against his own better judgement, he was walking down those same stairs carrying a towel and a cake of soap.

It was not surrender, Erik counselled himself. There were simply few things more abominable than the stench of manure in a confined space, and having taught the insufferable woman her lesson, there was no reason to suffer asphyxiation out of sheer spite. This was entirely logical, and Erik could not understand why there seemed to be a nasty sucking feeling in the pit of his stomach when he thought of Louise Gandon shutting her door. He paid rent; she scrubbed the stairs – as far as he could tell, this was exactly how the world operated. If she attempted to issue orders, it was entirely within his rights to use a little financial blackmail to put her back in her place. She ought to count herself fortunate, he raged silently, that he did not slip a noose over her thick neck and have done with it...

But that was a dangerous train of thought. Since the disastrous night on Madame Giry's balcony, the prospect of slipping a noose around anyone's neck made him feel distinctly queasy. Erik had a sick terror that any corpse he should bring into existence would spontaneously metamorphose into Madame Giry – and that he would look up from her swelling body, puffed and smeared with blood, to see Christine's wide, horrified eyes fixed on him. He felt his gorge rise and swallowed rapidly, chasing the thoughts from his overtired brain.

In the bathroom, Erik sloshed the contents of the wooden barrel into the deep, verdigris-covered tub. He ignored the steaming basin set on a wooden stool nearby; he had bathed in the lake under the Opéra Populaire all his life and found it perfectly adequate to his needs. He shed his dirty clothes and climbed in, kneeling in the water. If anything it was too warm, he was used to the graveyard chill of the lake and this was lukewarm, almost alive. The darkness inside the bathroom was near-absolute, broken only by the faint moonlight streaming in through an air vent near the ceiling. There was a lamp somewhere, but Erik had no more use for it than for the hot water. He knelt in silence, immersed to his chest in a shadowy green mirror.

The caress of the water against his skin made him aware of the sharp smell of sweat on his body, yet another consequence of his flight through the city. He scrubbed vigorously, soaping his hands and rubbing the skin angrily until it was tender to the touch. It would no doubt have been glowing red had there been light in the room to see it.

He dunked his head down a few times, feeling the water creep through his hair on one side and the mess of scar tissue on the other, streaming into his eyes. It made him think of the rain outside the Opéra, which in turn made him think of Christine – which caused him untold discomfort as he tried without much success to fight the response of his own body. Erik gripped the edges of the tub, fearful lest his hands stray. He tried to hold on to the image of Christine as he had known her: his angel, his muse whose white dress he had not dared to sully with his bloodied hands... Instead the darkness taunted him with Christine the woman, Christine the living, angry, hurt woman, near-naked and so warm. The thought of her fingers stroking his face made him groan. His lips parted without volition, for a kiss he could not have. He gripped the tub harder. Christine had seen him tonight, he was certain of it – but he would not think about it.

He spent the next half hour in the cold tub thinking about it, and a restless night dreaming of Christine's voice calling his name.

In his dreams, his face was whole and he had a right to kiss her. He saved her, in his dreams, from the monster who had imprisoned her in a lightless dungeon and who sought, with his cadaverous paws and burning eyes, to make her his bride. He slew that monster without pity. "Erik!" Christine cried out when he found her, and she flew into his waiting arms. He lifted her into the saddle of his white horse, and they rode off somewhere, anywhere, to some place where they could sing together and their voices rose with the stars.

He woke up briefly while it was still dark, to the unbelievable clamour of people yelling and singing loudly in the street.

He groaned and lifted one heavy hand to his face, half-expecting for a crazy moment to find it whole – but of course it was not. A dream. Splendid, Erik thought with revulsion: in his dreams he played a better Vicomte than Christine's beloved original. He even managed to kill the monster. The Phantom of the Fairy Tale, the handsome demon come to rescue his maiden, oh yes, certainly, why the devil not! It was amusing, no, it was downright hilarious...

So he did not know why he wept.

He forced his deformed head against the iron bars of the headboard, and cried from the pain instead.

Sleep found him again and this time it battered him mercilessly, in retribution for the stolen fairy tale: He was hurting Christine, throwing her down, wringing her arms, dragging her with him to his lair while she struggled and screamed and pleaded and he knew, even while this was happening, that he was still the handsome prince; his face was whole, it was his soul that was mangled.

"Erik!" Christine begged, swallowing great gasps of tears. "Erik!" Then abruptly it was he who was being thrown down on the stone floor, and Christine's slender hands were ripping into him and hitting his now-disfigured face, forcing him down, getting in past his shattered defences to hurt him, to kiss his mouth – to forgive him.

When he woke up a second time it was broad daylight, and he had missed the train.


	11. You Can Run

Once again, thank you to everyone for reviewing! For MariaY and anyone else concerned about the absence of a deep and meaningful conversation between Raoul and Christine: I promise I haven't copped out on it. Much as I dislike quoting Disney... "Patience, Iago." ;)

I lied about a shorter chapter this time. This is another long one, but it looks like the next two really will be shorter.

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**Chapter 11 – You Can Run **

Madame Giry picked up her cup and sipped slowly, watching her daughter and Christine over the rim. She had allowed them to sleep late as usual after a night's performance, and so they were having breakfast while she was taking her second coffee for the morning. At the rate this particular morning was progressing, Madame Giry thought she could well be on her third cup by midday.

"It is a beautiful day outside," she tried again. "And you are both free until tomorrow's rehearsals. Why don't you take the beltline train and go for a walk in the Bois de Boulogne?"

"No, _maman_," Meg said, "We must practice."

"You cannot practice alone, Meg, and I shall not be here to play the piano until this evening. We can practice then, but I insist that you go to the park and get some sun; you are pale as wax and I do not like these mournful looks one bit. You too, Christine Daaé, you are worse than my daughter. What is the matter with you this morning?"

"Nothing, Madame Giry."

"Nothing, _maman_. Only Christine broke off her engagement."

"Meg!" exclaimed Christine, just as Madame Giry said, "Christine!"

"Well, it's true," Meg said decisively. She stopped poking at her omelette and set down her fork. "You cannot keep such a thing secret."

"I had not meant to keep it secret! It is only that I," Christine stumbled, "I did not want to talk about it now."

Madame Giry looked from her daughter's defiant gaze, unhappy at being forced to keep silent on so serious a subject, to Christine's bruised, tired eyes. She sighed.

"Christine is right, Meg. We will not talk about it now. Finish your breakfast please, then we shall see."

She rose and went to make herself that third cup of coffee. Between the worrying talk of war in the boulevards, and now this, it did not promise to be an easy day.

She had just taken the coffee-pot off the stove when there was a knock on the door.

"I'll get it!" Meg called from the dining-room, and a moment later – "It's the laundry!"

The delivery girl, a bright-faced child in a worker's kerchief with her arms full of neatly pressed linen, ducked her head into the kitchen. Meg leaned into the kitchen after her, looked to see that Madame Giry was there, then went back out.

"Your washing, madame."

"Yes – thank you, Marie. Leave it over here please." Madame Giry moved the dented kettle off the counter and the girl deposited the stack of linen there.

"Ma says to tell you it'll be two sous extra this week, because of the mending."

"Mending?"

"A seam on a nightgown, here." Marie turned back the corner of a white lacy garment on top of the stack.

Madame Giry frowned. The gown was Christine's; the back seam had evidently been torn from the neckline down to just below the shoulder.

"Ma sewed it up for you, but she says it mightn't hold long, seeing as it's such fine fabric and it was stitched up so messy, last time." The girl clucked with the air of a professional who disapproved of shoddy work.

Madame Giry counted out the money into her hand: "Thank you, I'll be sure to patch it. Wait a minute, my daughter will bring this week's things for you. Ah, here she is."

Meg walked in with a bulging sack made out of a pillowcase, full of dirty linen.

"Shall I help you carry it?" she asked the child, earning herself a grown-up scornful look.

"No thank you, mademoiselle. I do it myself."

"Of course," Meg apologised gravely. "Let me get the door for you."

_Exit working-class dignity, stage left_, Madame Giry thought with a sad smile. This was precisely the life she had never wanted for her daughter and Christine, the life her own parents had never wanted for her. But what was so different after all about ballet dormitories and practice halls? She felt no more tired after scrubbing the floors in the _Théâtre Français_ than she had felt after several hours of rehearsal.

She examined the garments Marie had left, running a finger over the stitched-up seam of the nightgown. It was odd that Christine had not asked her to mend it.

o o o

Getting to the Gare de l'Est train station in time for the second train to Sedan had turned out to be far more difficult than Erik could have ever suspected. He sat in the cab, bleary-eyed after his tormented night, nursing the sense that he had lost a battle without ever knowing who his opponent had been. He no longer cared where the hell he was going. What mattered above all was the need to get out of this prison, this city whose every street beckoned him treacherously towards Christine.

The streets roiled with a throng like the Opéra masquerades on a grander scale: every last Parisian seemed to be outside this morning, soaking up the atmosphere of a festival. Erik found its vulgarity distasteful; its marching rhythm rang with the false notes of militant hypocrisy. Open landau carriages dressed with Chinese lanterns rolled past, and on top of these stood women in strange clothing, singing patriotic songs. Erik recognised one of them when his cab became wedged in the traffic behind her conveyance: it was la Carlotta herself, who had apparently forgotten all about her mourning for dear Piangi when presented with this rare opportunity to display her vocal cords and other dubious assets. Her red-dyed hair was elaborately coiffed, and she was wrapped in a blue, white and red stole, which on closer inspection turned out to be a tricolour flag. She waved it around. She sang. She waved. She sang some more. It was horrible.

Erik suffered this cacophony the rest of the way to the station. For the first time, he thought he could appreciate the plight of his audience at _Don Juan Triumphant_: one had to be attuned to the mood to appreciate such dissonance, and he felt about as attuned to this swarm of humanity as a tonedeaf corpse to his funeral march.

He paid the driver and took himself and his travel bag through the colonnaded entranceway of the station and into the immense hall, where the crowd was as thick and as noisy as in the streets. The big clock struck midday, each chime an assault on Erik's sensitised hearing. Light streaming in through the coloured glass of the rose window high above splashed patches of yellow, blue and orange across the clothes and faces of the passengers; everyone hurrying, yelling, gesticulating, mothers hauling squalling children by their wrists, gentlemen in top hats swerving around old peasant women bent over their precious bundles.

A piercing scream startled Erik. His heart thumped until he realised it was only the whistle of a departing train.

He battled the impulse to turn around and walk out, back to a cab and the privacy of his own room. Louise Gandon seemed to have forgotten the previous night's incident with the stairs; she had made no more mention of his moving out, but he had thought it best to leave the next fortnight's rent with Jean just in case. He had no wish to return to Paris to find his few possessions strewn across the sidewalk. In light of the new day, he had to admit the argument over the stairs had certainly not been one of his finest moments – but considering the entire distressing evening at the café and his encounter with... with the future Vicomtesse de Chagny, Erik decided it could have been a lot worse. At the very least, nobody was dead.

"One to Sedan," he said into the little glass window where the ticket clerk sat in his raised chair.

"What class?" the clerk asked in a bored voice, without looking at him.

Erik hesitated. Class? Surely 'bourgeois' would not be the right answer...

"Get second," recommended a lady behind him. She had the pinched expression of a migraine sufferer, which probably explained the look of commiseration she gave him. No doubt she enjoyed all this noise as little as he did.

"Second class," Erik said into the window. He nodded fractionally to the woman in acknowledgement.

"One moment please."

"Have you never travelled by train?" Madame Migraine-Sufferer inquired. "Or is it that you don't recall..." She made a sympathetic gesture at the bandage wrapped around half his head. "Memory loss? They say it can happen with a concussion..."

"Memory loss!" Erik sputtered, startled despite himself into amusement. "My thanks, madame – that's certainly one I have not heard before. At least, not as far as I can _remember_."

He paid, took his ticket and walked off in search of the right platform. To his surprise, the crowd did not seem to be bothering him quite as much anymore. In fact... He looked down the line of platforms and found that he felt almost at ease, even somewhat interested by this new method of travel.

It had been an excellent idea to get out of Paris. From the next two weeks he could endeavour to put everything from his mind save the plans for this courthouse. There would be no chance meetings in Sedan; no dark, twisting dreams of Christine. Like a blinded man learning to walk again, he would teach himself to live without her, a step at a time.

He wondered what she was doing at this moment.

o o o

The coffee was growing cold; Madame Giry poured it quickly and went back into the dining-room. Meg was gathering the dishes from breakfast, but Christine was nowhere in sight.

Meg stopped as soon as she saw her, the last plate still on the table. "You must talk to her, _maman_. I'm afraid I upset her."

Madame Giry gave her daughter a reproachful look.

"It was badly done, Meg. Would you like it if Christine were to blurt out your confidences that way?"

Meg looked abashed. "No. But I worry about her... She has been so strange these past few days. Angry and sad and... I don't know. Not herself. There was such a scene at the _Variétés_ last night, you would not have recognised her! She was shouting at Helena, right there in the dressing room. And now this thing with Raoul. _Maman_, I don't know what's wrong. Christine won't tell me anything."

"You mustn't push her, Meg. It has been a difficult year."

"I know." Meg picked up the last of the plates. "You will talk to her?"

"Of course." Madame Giry touched her daughter's shoulder briefly in comfort. "But no more tantrums at the table, do you hear?"

"Yes, _maman_. I'm sorry, that was childish."

"Very childish. Take care of things here please, while I find Christine. She is in her room?"

"I think so."

The door to Christine's bedroom was ajar, but Madame Giry knocked anyway, loathe to intrude on the girl's privacy.

"I'll be out in a moment." Christine's voice was muffled.

"Christine? I should like to talk to you, my dear. May I come inside?"

"Yes... One moment. Come in."

The door opened on Christine, dressed in a dark skirt and blouse, and holding a hair comb. The sombre outfit lent her skin an even paler hue, against which her red-rimmed eyes and nervously bitten lips stood out as starkly as if they had been painted for the stage.

"I should not have run off, I'm sorry. I'll go help Meg."

"No, Christine." Gently, Madame Giry took her cold hand. "Come sit down with me for a moment."

Christine stood aside reluctantly to allow Madame Giry to enter. The drapes had been shut tight and the room was nearly dark; what little light filtered through the fabric had the reddish dusty quality of twilight. Madame Giry strode over to the window to open it, but Christine stopped her:

"No, please. It is better... My head aches."

"Shutting the window will do your head little good. You are not a vampire; you need fresh air and sunlight."

Nonetheless, Madame Giry left the window alone and perched beside Christine on the edge of the bed. There was nowhere else to sit; the room was the same as Meg's, with space only for a wardrobe, a bed, and a dresser with shelves in place of a mirror. The furnishings had come from the ballet dormitories at the Opéra Populaire; one of the few rooms untouched by fire. The managers had allowed the staff to take what they could before selling the rest at auction, as a small extra payout on top of the precious little they had received after bankruptcy had been declared. On the dresser was a portrait of Christine's father, some plain jewellery she had evidently been choosing from, and a little round mirror with a jewelled handle, a present from Raoul.

Madame Giry watched Christine toy aimlessly with the comb in her hands. She waited for her to speak, trusting that it would be wiser to let the girl find her own words.

"What Meg said... It's true, Madame Giry." Christine held up her hand, to show her bare ring finger.

Madame Giry waited.

"You must think I'm insane."

"I think no such thing. You are quite old enough to make your own choices, Christine. I wish only for you to be certain that you do not make them rashly, or for the wrong reason."

Christine ran a fingernail over the teeth of the comb, producing a nervous staccato. She said nothing.

"Did your fiancé do something to upset you?"

"No... It was me. I did something to upset him. I – hurt him. Many times."

Madame Giry raised her eyebrows a fraction.

"You don't believe me," said Christine.

"I have my doubts." Her lips quirked, "Yours is not the face of a _femme fatale_, child."

"My face!" Christine jerked her head at the mirror on the dresser. "You're just like Raoul! He thinks I look innocent so I must be an angel. He's so sure of it that he cannot believe the truth even when he sees it with his own eyes, even when he sees – when he..."

"Come now." Madame Giry gently pried the comb from Christine's clutching fingers and set it on the dresser.

"If you have indeed done something you regret then you must set it right. It is no use hiding here in the dark. The world will not go away because you have shut your eyes."

"Don't you understand? I lied to him! You said I should not make choices for the wrong reasons but I did, I took Raoul's ring and told myself it was right and swore to myself that I would never again – that from now on... _Damn it_!" Christine exploded, surprising Madame Giry.

She ran to the window and tore the drapes open, flooding the room with sunlight. Madame Giry raised a hand against the brightness, even as Christine flung open the window with a loud crash of the shutters.

"This!" she said, whirling around. "This is how it happened! This is what I am, Madame Giry! So how can I be innocent, how can I marry him now!"

"Christine, stop these dramatics." Madame Giry did not raise her voice, but she felt a cold anxiety welling within her.

"Tell me what happened. Calmly, please."

"He was here," Christine said in a hollow voice. "The night after the ball. I opened the window, and the Phantom came inside."

"...I see."

Madame Giry heard the words drop, a breath gone.

The discipline of her body was ironclad; it would not betray her. Only her mind was turning black, a great deal of blood pulsing out to darken her vision. She had known he would seek her out one day; she had not forgotten the sight of Christine's ring burning in his dirty palm – but not like this. Never like this.

Damn him, she had _pitied_ him. Again. She had told him to find his honour. She had saved him again for _this_, for doing to this girl with his body what he had once done with his voice.

Damn him. Damn him. Damn him.

Madame Giry moved her head from side to side, as in denial; caught the movement and stopped it.

"Child, the Phantom..."

"I am not a child. His name is Erik."

"Yes, you're right," Madame Giry moved her lips to speak. _Erik_: the name she had once guarded as closely as his home, the name of a little boy. She saw his hands on Christine's body on stage, before the audience of _Don Juan_. She had known then that he was no child; nor Christine. She could not admit it.

"I touched him," Christine spoke with blood in the words, as though determined to make this as painful as she could. "I had kissed him once before, down in the tunnels, I told you..."

Madame Giry nodded slightly.

"This time he kissed me. I ... wanted him to." In the sunlight from the window, Christine's face was burning white; she was shaking. "I betrayed Raoul, Madame Giry. I betrayed myself..."

The nightgown, Madame Giry thought numbly. The torn seam that Christine had tried to mend.

"I should have stopped it but I didn't, I couldn't, it was like the music – I can't explain, please don't make me..."

"And afterwards?" asked Madame Giry mechanically.

"He ran away."

She bit back an obscenity. "Through the window?"

"Yes. Like a ghost." The blood rushed back to Christine's face.

Madame Giry glanced at the sun-drenched windowsill. She could just make out a corner of the dining-room balcony through it. Not like a ghost, she thought painfully. Like a coward.

"I miss him." Christine spoke barely above a whisper. "I miss him! It's like he's inside me, in my bones – he's not a ghost, I know, and Raoul knows as well because he sees, he know what happens to me... I can't marry Raoul. I can't. I know it's crazy; I don't expect you to understand..."

Madame Giry rose, half-unseeing. "It is all right, my dear. I do understand, better than you think. It isn't your fault."

"How can it not be my fault!"

"Christine, you are young. Too young."

Somehow, she managed to embrace Christine, kiss her clammy forehead, promise her that everything would be fine. Thinking of it later, she could not recall a word she had said, but it seemed to have worked well enough. Christine had calmed down, and had then stood patiently while Madame Giry helped her tidy her hair and get ready for a day at the Bois de Boulogne with Meg, a nice stroll through a park.

How all this was managed, Madame Giry could not say. She knew only that she moved with the mute precision of a wooden dancer in a German clock, backwards and forwards along the familiar track. Only when she had finally shut the door behind the two girls did she allow herself to walk – slowly – to her room, to collect her hat and gloves, and to find the calling card with the address of Monsieur Duchamp's office.

She had no choice. _Monsieur le_ _Fantôme_ would have to face the music.

Madame Giry pulled the calling card from the hat-box where she kept all the little things, scraps of paper and the accumulated trinkets of a life. There were ribbons cut from costumes, and brittle, yellowed newspaper clippings, testament to a girl's vanity – a critique of her very first solo, in _La Sylphide_, praising a promising young talent. There were many after that, then none at all. She had been luckier than most. Madame Giry swept the clippings to one side, searching for something else.

At the bottom of the box she found it: a small cream-coloured envelope with a broken seal of red wax. Inside was a square of card cut around the edges to resemble lace; a fortnight's work for a child's meticulous hands. The writing was plain, without the florid sarcasm that he had picked up later, she never knew where from.

Reading it made her age-old grief and anger burst afresh:

_Come and play with me, Mademoiselle White Girl._

_I'll show you the lake, it's very big. I want you to live here, too._

_Erik._

She remembered finding him after that; explanations muttered through a wall about her job in the ballet, which he had neither understood nor cared to hear. All he could understand of her words was 'no'. She had been fifteen. When next she heard from him, he no longer referred to himself as Erik, and she no longer referred to herself as Mademoiselle – yet she never did learn to think of him as the Phantom. When Christine had heard him sing and believed him to be the Angel of Music, she had not the strength to deprive the little girl of the fairytale that had restored her joy; nor could she deprive Erik of the only person who had ever thought him beautiful, the child who loved him for his voice. So she had allowed these music lessons to go on – idiot that she had been! – thinking the deception could do no harm, two orphans helping each other...

She had been a fool to trust him.

She had to keep him away from Christine now. This much was obvious. She had to take the card with his address to the police, give her testimony about the deaths in the Opéra, and protect Christine.

Madame Giry stood up, found her legs unsteady, and sat again.

For many minutes she sat unmoving, holding the child's letter in her hand. Holding a child's life in her hand. She did not know how one came to the decision to kill; she had no experience with the planning of a murder. The thought of him imprisoned behind bars, caged as he had been as a boy, was abhorrent. Yet how many chances could one man have? The murders, the fire, kidnapping, God only knew what else, and now this – with Christine... Had he come here for vengeance, trying to destroy the future Christine had refused to share with him? Or ...

She thought suddenly of Christine's ring in his hand – and realised what she had to do.

Madame Giry closed the hat-box and stowed it back under her bed. With brisk steps she returned to the dining-room, took out the inkwell and a pen and sat down at the table. She allowed herself one final look at the note – this beautiful, precious thing she had kept for so many years – and silently bid it goodbye.

On the obverse of the card she wrote:

_Monsieur —_

_Kindly recall the difference between a man and a ghost. A man takes responsibility for the actions of his body and his soul; a ghost is dead. If you cannot be the former, I shall be pleased to aid the gendarmes in helping you become the latter._

_A. G._

The initials stared back at her, mockingly. The irony was too painful. Resolutely, she blew on the ink to set it, put the note back into its faded envelope and slipped it into her purse. Then she strode out of the apartment, but not for the prefecture of police.

She slammed the door of the building behind her, and headed straight for Monsieur Duchamp's office.


	12. The Wallflowers

Thanks to everyone who reviewed the previous chapters! There have been some really interesting thoughts and comments in many of the recent reviews, which are invaluable in letting me know what does and does not come across in my writing. Thanks also to everyone who stopped to check out my R/C one-shot ("The Edge of Something"). I haven't been wasting time on it instead of "Solo", I promise; I was just bitten by the angst bug. 

Trivia for this week: Oppenord's sketches for "The Opera of Mount Olympus" really exist, and really are spectacular. He insisted that it should be built somewhere where it can stand all by itself, without other buildings around. Predictably, this did not happen, and the theatre was never built at all.

* * *

**Chapter 12 – The Wallflowers**

Madame Giry had intended to catch a cab to the architects' office, knowing that she was due at the _Théâtre Français_ before the matinee, but it was clear from the moment she stepped outside the apartment building that she would have to walk. The boulevards were packed with people, not only the pavements but the roads themselves, bringing wheeled traffic to a standstill. The very air seemed charged with political fervour the likes of which she had not seen since her early years in Paris, during Napoleon III's _coup d'état_. This time the madness was of a different sort, however – there was a theatrical, dangerous quality to the riotous fun of patriotic singing and the lines of men combing the boulevards with their arms linked, shouting ribald slogans about taking Berlin by storm. It seemed closer to a rehearsal of _Hannibal_ than to a real nation prepared for a real war, although Madame Giry had to concede that she had scant notion of what a nation prepared for a real war ought to look like.

Clots of people congregating by the news-stands spoke of the war having been officially declared, and of the Emperor's unexpected avowal to lead the army himself. Madame Giry heard the same words again and again as she passed each of these groups, vague terms like 'honour', 'demands' and 'insolence'. Fed up with being accosted by newspaper boys, she finally bought a paper in self-defence, and struggled grimly through the worst of the mayhem.

The walk to the office building seemed to take hours. By the time she reached the right address, she felt fairly baked in her dark dress under the scalding July sun. A passerby with a watch confirmed her suspicions: it was well after midday, which left little more than an hour until she would be missed at the threatre. Belatedly Madame Giry thought she should have stopped an errand boy and sent him with a message, but she was well out of the crowd now and returning would only waste more time.

Hot, painfully thirsty and harried was not how she had hoped to arrive at this confrontation. She dismissed the cowardice at once and went on to the office building.

As she had expected, the street entrance was unlocked; Monsieur Duchamp had never been one to shut shop because of a minor incident like the declaration of a war while there was work to be done. Madame Giry respected that.

The portier, on the other hand, was evidently a man more easily tempted by the activity outside, because the lobby was empty, and she encountered nobody else on her way up the marble stairs.

It was pleasantly cool inside the building. Madame Giry felt her composure slowly returning, but there was no helping the anxiety that had accompanied her all the way here. Old stage habits told her to control her breathing, straighten her spine and ignore the trickle of perspiration from her shoulder blades to the small of her back. She did all this, but the anxiety remained. Disciplining the body was a simple matter. The greater difficulty was disciplining the mind.

She paused on the first landing to check that the faded envelope with the note was still in her purse. In the subdued daylight of the stairwell, the fine paper stolen from the managers of the Opéra Populaire seemed less impressive, and the old seal was a crumbling blob of wax. The delicate lacework of the card, however, retained all its impossible intricacy – and it seemed monstrously unfair that the same hands that could create something like this should also be the hands that could strangle the life from a human being, or tear the seam of a girl's night-dress.

Madame Giry hid the envelope away. She felt a sick, desperate pity for him, almost fondness; it was like a vice in her chest. She was glad, shamefully, that Christine had never called her 'mother', because no mother's heart would bleed for her child's tormentor even as it bled for her child. Somehow, in this mess that had become their existence, she had managed to fail them both. No more, Madame Giry decided. She had to set it right. This resolve was a knife in her grip; it gave her strength. She fastened her purse and ascended the rest of the way up the stairs.

Monsieur Duchamp's draughting _atelier_ occupied one half of the second floor, the other side of which was shared between the offices of a lawyer and an individual of some unspecified profession identified as 'M. Aguirre, by appointment only'. Madame Giry pushed the first door and walked in.

A chime announced her entrance. The brass plaque outside had proclaimed only "M. Duchamp and Associates", no other names, but a single look around the antechamber was sufficient to confirm to Madame Giry that the man she was after had indeed installed himself here. On the walls were plans of buildings, one of which stood out as plainly to her eye as a familiar face in a crowd. His handwriting had not changed. She had almost expected to see 'O.G.' under that drawing. Instead, the signature read, "Andersson".

"Can I be of assistance, madame?" asked the secretary at his desk by the door. He was a pleasant young man in a neatly pressed suit, with carefully combed dark hair that gleamed in the sunlight from the window behind him.

Madame Giry approached the desk.

"I am here to see Monsieur Andersson. Immediately, if I may; it is a matter of some urgency."

"Ah. I regret that isn't possible, madame. He left this morning to inspect a building site. If you could leave your name, he shall be sure to contact you directly on his return."

Madame Giry cursed her luck.

"That will not be necessary. I'll wait here."

"There would be no point, madame – he is not due back in Paris until..." The secretary folded over a page in his ledger, then another.

"He is gone from Paris?" Madame Giry asked, taken aback.

"Oh yes, madame." He finally located the right entry. "Until the first of August, I believe."

"Two weeks! I ... had not expected it."

"I really am very sorry. Would you perhaps like to talk to one of—"

"Well, well!" came a deep voice from the other side of the room, and Madame Giry turned slowly, still reeling, to see Monsieur Duchamp standing in the doorway of his adjoining office.

He looked unchanged since she had last seen him: a grey-haired gentleman with his waxed moustaches and the genial, friendly manner that could soothe even the most intractable of clients. He had clearly been working; he was dressed in his waistcoat and had the stub of a pencil wedged behind his ear.

"If it isn't young Agathe Giry! I had wondered when you might pay me a visit."

Madame Giry shook her head, finding a smile in response to his genuine warmth. "Not so young these days, monsieur. I had hoped to have a word with – my friend, but it appears I have missed him. I am sorry to interrupt your work."

"Not at all, I'm delighted! Please, come inside."

"With pleasure, Monsieur Duchamp, but I fear I only have a minute. I am expected at the theatre."

"Oh yes, you wrote, the _Théâtre Français_ – I shall not keep you long, you have my word. I say, what is all the commotion on the boulevards? It was frightful this morning, quite impossible to get anywhere at all."

"It is no better now," she assured him. "Perhaps worse. It seems there is to be a war with Prussia; more than that I cannot tell. One would think from the celebrations that we have won already."

"So it's done at last, is it?" He sighed. "Politics is the curse of our day. After you, Madame Giry."

He held the door and she preceded him into the office.

There were two chairs at a large desk; behind it was a glorious drawing of a theatre in red and white chalk and charcoal: Oppenord's 18th century plan for the non-existent Opera of Mount Olympus, done in breathtaking detail. The beauty of it made Madame Giry pause as always – every line spoke of an instinct for the marriage of grace and precision, the endless search for perfection.

Monsieur Duchamp saw her admire the sketch. "Still has pride of place, Oppenord. Art and technique, hmm? Nothing like an unattainable dream to inspire one."

She had to smile at that.

"Yes; in ballet also. I have always loved this drawing."

She took a seat across from him, while Monsieur Duchamp deftly rolled up the plans that had been opened on his desk.

"Your young friend Andersson was quite taken with the sketch as well," he said, as he stashed the tall rolls in a corner. "I cannot thank you enough for sending him my way – truly, my dear girl, you know some remarkable people! Remarkable! He has the eye of an artist, but his calculations are faultless; even the most quarrelsome engineer could find nothing to quibble about. I don't believe I have ever seen anything like it. Watching him draw is quite the experience; it is as though nothing else exists. I fear that if we did not lock up the office at night he would remain in his place and keep working until he died of hunger. As it is, he works every night at home."

"Does he," Madame Giry remarked noncommittally.

She released a breath, and resigned herself to the thwarted confrontation. "It really is a pleasure to see you, Monsieur Duchamp." She smiled wistfully. "I hope your sister's family are all well?"

"Very well – thank you. And little Marguerite? Still dancing, I gather?"

"Yes, with the _Variétés_ until November." She was relieved he did not ask after Christine.

Monsieur Duchamp moved to the cabinet by the window and took out a heavy bottle and two glasses.

"Brandy," he indicated, hefting the bottle slightly. He poured out the two measures and passed hers across.

Madame Giry acquiesced, taking the offered glass. It was a greeting they shared as a solemn ritual. Jean-Marie Duchamp was a man of the old, disappearing world, one who greeted women with a bow and polite words rather than with brandy – indeed, he had greeted her in the regular manner for a long time after they met, all through the difficult months of her pregnancy when she had relied on his assistance. It was only when she had been ready to return to the ballet and had come to thank him for his help, that he had taken out the brandy. He had poured it equally between them and, coming from this man, she had understood it then for what it was: a gesture of his highest regard, a recognition of courage. She took it as it was offered, simply and without words.

They lifted their glasses in a brief, silent toast, and drank.

"I am sorry you missed Andersson this morning," Monsieur Duchamp resumed, setting his empty glass aside. "All the same, I am glad he has taken the opportunity to leave the city. It is not good for a young man to be so consumed in his work that he forgets daylight."

Madame Giry made a harsh sound. "He never lacked focus."

"Precisely," Monsieur Duchamp picked up the word, "focus! Absolute focus. Quite, quite remarkable – I daresay with some little experience he could be giving old Oppenord's ghost serious cause to fear for his status."

"I am pleased to hear he is doing so well. May I inquire, monsieur, where precisely he has gone?"

"Sedan. A little place on the Belgian border; we have a commission for a new courthouse there. Andersson flatly refused to put his signature to the plans until he has seen the site. And very commendable of him, too – it isn't every architect nowadays has the humility to fit his work to what's built already."

"Thank you," Madame Giry said, thoughtfully. "I shall have to consider this."

She stood up, apologising. "Forgive me, please, but I really must go; I am very late. Still, I am glad we have met once again, even so briefly. I hope I have not been too much trouble."

"Too _little_ trouble, as usual," Monsieur Duchamp grumbled. "Agathe, please my dear, allow me to help you in some small way. I cannot help but worry for you now the Opéra is gone. The Daaé child, she is getting married, no? At least accept a small gift for her, ease my old heart. Come, you cannot deny the girl a frilly dress and all the trimmings."

"You are good, monsieur – but Christine's fiancé is a wealthy young man, and much in love. I have no doubt that should this marriage proceed as planned he would consider it his personal obligation to dress her in all the finery she could wish."

"Agathe, what's all this rubbish? You cannot mean for the girl to owe her husband her own wedding, and every last thread on her back!"

Madame Giry raised her shoulders in a resigned gesture. "If she is to spend a lifetime on an income not her own, then neither you nor I can change that with the price of a bridal veil. I believe Christine's fiancé is a good man; he would not hold such a thing against her."

"Even so..."

"Even so."

Monsieur Duchamp rose also to get the door for her. He paused as she came up, and spoke more quietly.

"I want you to promise that you will not hesitate to contact me if things become too difficult. If not for your own sake then at least for the young ones."

Madame Giry placed a hand on his in gratitude and affection, but shook her head.

"You have already helped more than you know, Monsieur Duchamp. As regards money, surely you know me better than to believe I would let Meg or Christine suffer privation, marriage or no. They are well enough off for the present."

Monsieur Duchamp tugged at his moustache in frustration. "I do not believe I have ever known a woman more obstinate than you, Agathe Giry, but I daresay you know best. A moment please, allow me to see you out."

He opened the door for her and reached for his hat and cane. Madame Giry gave him a wry smile.

"Monsieur, if I could not hail a cab at my age, I should be in a sorry state indeed. Please convey my best regards to your sister – good day!"

Monsieur Duchamp grunted in defeat. "Good day, Madame Giry."

o o o

"No, I do not believe she is expecting me, but if could wait—"

The concierge, a stocky middle-aged woman, gave Raoul a harassed look from behind her table. "I'm sorry, monsieur, but I really can't say when Mademoiselle Daaé will be back, and I will not permit you to loiter in my lobby for hours on end."

"Madame, you may have my word that I shall not inconvenience you," Raoul tried not to sound exasperated. He motioned with the rolled-up newspaper he was holding towards a wooden chair by the door:

"I shall simply sit here and read until Mademoiselle Daaé returns."

"I cannot allow it, young man. If you have leisure to spend the entire day waiting, then by all means wait outside. Heaven knows there's enough vagabonds and louts out there today!"

This was true; the streets had been jammed since morning, and early afternoon had brought little improvement.

Raoul let his breath out through his nostrils, determined not to be baited.

"Fine," he said. "I thank you for your kind assistance."

He put his hat back on and was halfway to the door when the concierge spoke up again, sounding somewhat mollified, and more than a little curious:

"Why do you not simply leave the lady a letter, monsieur?"

Raoul looked back. "Forgive me, but that is none of your concern."

"Certainly it is my concern," the woman bristled, "if it is a question of strangers lingering here to accost the tenants!"

"I am not a stranger, madame, as I'm certain you are perfectly aware. You have seen me here many a time with my fiancée."

"You are Mademoiselle Daaé's – but gracious, I had no idea she was to be wed!"

The nosy woman looked genuinely startled; the revelation that there was something about one of the tenants she had known was clearly a new experience for her.

Raoul found he could not reply. Her words had stung him with a pang of something like jealousy, though he could not say of what. The concierge had seen him with Christine a dozen times, kept tabs on every tenant, knew all the gossip – and yet had not even guessed at their marriage plans. He had the painful sense that this entire engagement had been a figment of his imagination, an illusion that was real to nobody but him.

The concierge recovered at once, clasping her hands and beaming at him, quite melted by the idea of marriage:

"Of course you must stay here and wait for her, if you so wish! Why, it would be a sad thing indeed to keep two young lovers from meeting. And may I ask when the happy day is to be?"

Raoul cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I'm afraid I cannot say."

The woman's expression softened still further, into benevolent sympathy. "Had a tiff, did you? I do see why you wouldn't wish to leave a letter. Well! Then you had better find her and talk to her!"

"That _was_ my intention in coming here, madame. I do not know where else I may find her."

She gave him a little wink, "I believe I heard her say something on the way out about a walk in the Bois de Boulogne."


	13. From the Second Prison

Thank you, everyone, for your reviews! Please keep reviewing, and I'll try to keep updating as frequently as I can. This chapter is all Erik for a change.

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**Chapter 13 – From the Second Prison **

Erik was determined to have a pleasant, quiet journey. It had certainly started out agreeably enough: he located the Sedan train without undue hassle and walked along the snake of the steel construction, searching for the right carriage. Passing the windows of the third class, he glanced up and had cause to remember with some gratitude the woman who had recommended that he take second: through the dim, grimy glass, he could make out rows of wooden seats being taken up by a somewhat raggedy crowd, like a Montmartre street being squashed into a tiny space. People sat down shoulder-to-shoulder, so close together and so hemmed in by all their boxes, bottles, bags, children, parcels and the like that there seemed scarcely room to breathe among them.

The second class was far more to his liking.

Erik took his seat in an empty compartment and stowed his bag under the padded bench. He opened the curtains on the window – then shut them at once: some people on the platform had looked inside, just as he had looked into the other carriages. The sensation of being on display for every curious pair of eyes, powerless to direct their attention or control their response, was nothing to relish. He unclenched his fists, taking a few moments to chase thoughts of freak-shows back into the deep well of the past. The horror slid back, obedient.

Really, this was almost simple. Certainly simpler than putting up with the bright daylight of the draughting office while he focused on his work. Here, the compartment was his alone: the two facing benches and the little table by the window that could be folded out of the way, all of it smelling faintly of wood-polish and dust. Not exactly lavish interior decoration, but a vast improvement on the crush of the third-class carriage. He could get used to this.

Erik seated himself more comfortably and took out his copy of _La Lanterne_, the most recent. The magazine had been imposed on him by Jean from the day he took up residence in Montmartre, apparently in the interests of fostering his political and social enlightenment. Erik had to admit there really were some interesting things to be learned. He flipped over to the article he had been reading – a scathing indictment of the disorganised French military, written with vicious, brilliant sarcasm – and prepared for a peaceable journey.

In the space of two minutes, his compartment was invaded by three other men of various ages and body shapes, all with bags, and a young woman in possession of a peacock-feather hat, which took up the rest of the room. Erik felt very much like the French military was currently feeling, if _La Lanterne_ was to be trusted: entirely unprepared.

He tried to reach for his bag, thinking to make a strategic retreat, but a glance out to the corridor assured him that his chances of another empty compartment were non-existent: people were hurrying and calling out things like, "I say, here's an empty one!", doors banged, and a loud whistle outside only added a new urgency to the pandemonium.

It appeared to be the normal state of affairs for a train due to depart, and none of the other passengers shared Erik's discomfort. The men had seated themselves in as dignified a manner as could be accomplished in so small a space, while the lone woman perched elegantly across from him, by the window. Naturally, she then felt the need to draw the curtains wide open.

Erik moved back from the window as far as he could; not very, considering the wall at his back. This entire arrangement was beginning to grate on his nerves. He tried to engross himself in his reading; it was difficult, to say the least, when he considered spending the next several hours penned up in a steel box with all these creatures.

"Rather stuffy in here, isn't it?" said the young lady, fanning herself with yet another peacock construction, perhaps the hapless bird's tail. "May I open the window, monsieurs?"

"Certainly," said one of the men, "Let us have some air."

The upper pane of the window was duly opened, without regard for Erik's unvoiced protest. Then another whistle sounded – and something began to happen to the train. At first Erik thought he was dizzy, and the platform seemed to move before his eyes; a second later he realised the train had started to move very slowly, in a peculiarly gentle fashion. It gathered speed, the platform with all the hurrying people moving past and some station official in a red cap waving a flag – then quite suddenly they left the station behind and sunlight blazed in the compartment.

From that moment on, Erik was glued to the window.

He forgot all about the other passengers, his reading, about being stuck in a minuscule cramped space. First there were other trains, hurtling past in a tremendous blur of windows and rattling steel – then houses and trees and lamp-posts and smaller houses flashed by as Paris melted into suburbs. They passed the fortifications and Erik felt the breath lodge painfully in his throat: he had not been past these walls since he first came to the Opéra. A prison – a second prison he had never even suspected, and now he was out. Before his ravenous eyes, the view opened out all the way to the horizon, searing him with the staggering, alien immensity of the countryside.

They passed vineyards, then yellow and ochre fields like cloth of gold, but with the texture of velvet, rippling and suffused with light. He had seen paintings, but no canvas could possibly have done justice to this light, to the way it seemed to fill the very air. Rows of cypresses separated fields, spear-like and almost black against the sky. The train crested a rise, and it was like being lifted above the land, offered everything at once: from the precise edges of the fields and orchards that fitted together like a puzzle, down to the tousled trees sloping from the field to the gravel of the railroad, the whole world lit by a brilliant whiteness in a sky so vividly blue that it hurt to look – and yet it was not harsh, this daylight, but joyous. The occasional cloud cast shadows on the land, and in the distance small dark shapes moved peacefully: cows or perhaps horses. A glittering river, sister to the black canals he had loved. The supports of a bridge in the distance. The steel ribs of the bridge they were crossing, blurring in and out of phase, like two pieces of lace rubbed together against the light. The train shrieked and applauded with its wheels in the crazy elated symphony of freedom. More fields again, the river vanished.

He must have seen all this as a child, Erik knew, but all he could remember were vague shapes through slits in a sack. A pain welled up in his chest, such anger – to have been deprived of all this! – but he could not seem to make the thoughts real; it was too important that he look _now_ and remember. Remember everything, everything. A few isolated cottages appeared, then hills with a church spire in the distance that suggested an invisible town nestled in a valley.

The train plunged into blackness. Before Erik could blink it was suddenly out – a tunnel. He was speechless at the speed of it, the suddenness with which everything happened and was left behind. He had felt the stale breath of the darkness through the window, a scent of earth, and now they were in the open again. He pressed his fingertips to the glass, and the vibration became music.

"I say! Monsieur! Hello?"

Erik became aware that someone was addressing him. He turned quite slowly, keeping his hand to the window, unwilling to be parted from it, feeling as a man woken up from a pleasant dream to a less-than-stellar reality.

"What is it?" he demanded of the intruder, an anxious-looking young man in a cap and buttoned-up jacket.

"Your ticket, sir," the conductor gulped, with the earnestness that suggested it was his first day on the job. "You do have one?"

Erik produced the little paper, at which the young man looked visibly relieved.

Duty completed, he looked around the compartment: "We'll be stopping at Reims to change engines around six thirty, so there should be plenty of time for a stroll."

"What a nuisance!" complained the big-bellied gentleman next to Erik, folding his paper to a new page. "Do you suppose they'll keep us waiting long?"

"Shouldn't think so, sir," replied the conductor cheerfully. "Half an hour at most. We'll be in Sedan before you know it."

The gentleman's only response to this was a long-suffering look, which the other passengers around Erik echoed variously with, "As usual!" or "Ah well, it is to be expected with this war." The young conductor departed, courteously shutting the door behind him.

"Every month I travel this way," Erik's neighbour told him. "And each time they say, 'oh, we'll be there at nine on the dot!' – you wait and see if we're there before ten! And now, what with all these troop movements, you can be sure they'll be taking the engines down to Châlons and who knows what that's going to do to the schedules."

Erik made an inarticulate sound of irritation, which the other man took for assent. He longed to return to gazing out the window, but he was fast coming to the conclusion that this would be considered strange behaviour, and it would be folly to give these people cause to spend the next few hours staring at him. Keeping his head turned away so as to keep as much of the bandage to the wall as possible, Erik finally said:

"I doubt they would be taking engines from here. They're crossing the border down towards Saarbrücken."

This was an unwise move; the red-cheeked gentleman fairly blossomed with the apparent offer of a political discussion.

"Oh, you have the new _Lanterne_!" he exclaimed in pleasure, spying Erik's neglected magazine on the table. "So, you think there's some truth to what they say about Bavaria then? Could they really have a secret alliance with Bismarck? Because if they were to push against us from the South, that'd catch us in a fine old trap—"

It was shocking, still, to be spoken to this way, but Erik found the role was starting to grow on him. At any rate, he experienced no great difficulty in parrying the man's entirely nearsighted arguments about the war, and from there it was only a short step to opinions of a general nature, about soldiers and the government and the indolence of the so-called working class. To his own puzzlement, Erik felt some displeasure at such blanket condemnation of the people he had come to know in Montmartre, and before long he was tied up in an argument on the subject of fair pay and all sorts of other nonsense, with which he had evidently been filling his own head all unknowing throughout his stay above the Gandons' store. Not without irony, he reflected that Jean would be gratified to hear him now.

It took a full hour before he managed to extricate himself from the conversation and return to the window; by which point Erik decided he had done all the social duty expected of any gentleman, and if anyone else felt the desire to talk to him, they could damn well talk to his back. This did not seem likely, however, as the two younger gentlemen had in the meantime identified a mutual acquaintance whose political views they were now discussing in some detail, and the lady had spent the entire trip engrossed in some novel. Erik turned his attention back to the sunlit vineyards outside. The music came back to him, this time with a clear, simple melody. He watched, and listened.

The train stopped fairly often, mostly at small stations that seemed to rise out of nowhere; each time accompanied by scuffing boots and muffled voices from the corridor as new passengers boarded or alighted. At one such station, Erik took out a pencil and began to scribble idle notes on the inside back page of the magazine, where there was hardly any type. By the time the train pulled into the next station, he realised what it was he was composing. Not just a song – a _voice_. Her voice. Christine's clear, aching voice weaving into melody all the fields, the vineyards, the sky, even the rhythmic comforting rattle of the wheels. He traced the staff with a fingertip, hearing her, feeling her soar. So beautiful...

So wrong.

The realisation jolted him. He was putting words into Christine's mouth, again. He had promised himself, promised!

Erik tore the page from the magazine and scrunched it up, stuffing it into his pocket. The woman sitting across from him looked up curiously from her novel; Erik ignored her. He stared out the window, pulse racing, trying to shed the disgust at his own weakness, trying to forget Christine's song in his soul. He could as well have stopped his own heart from beating; the song lived. It was fortunate that just then the train began to slow once again, this time bringing them into Reims.

Erik had never felt more grateful to be outside, or more genially inclined towards the random buzzing of a crowd. The platform took the song from him at last, and at length he was able to buy some indescribable fried thing from a vendor, wrapped in brown paper, and consume this in a fairly unpopulated corner of the station. While he ate, he watched another train being assembled at a siding, two third-class carriages being coupled to a locomotive. A large group of men dressed identically in red trousers and navy-blue jackets loitered around, and Erik realised these were soldiers, waiting for their transport.

Food seemed to help. By the time the train resumed its journey, Erik felt more human, and thankfully there was no more music in his head. This cheered him enough that he did not mind too much that the stop stretched well past the promised half-hour, and even condescended to join in the general grumbling on the subject with the other passengers, once the five of them were again assembled in their compartment. The train pulled out at last just as the light turned softer, edging from afternoon into a fine summer evening.

"Cards, perhaps?" suggested Lenoir, one of the two younger gentlemen, when the lamps were lit inside.

The young lady declined, offering laughingly to keep score while the gentlemen played.

It was only when Lenoir began to deal that Erik realised they were including him.


	14. When the War Is Over

Thanks, guys, for all the reviews! There _may_ be a slight delay getting the next chapter out, because real life has an unfortunate tendency to play havoc with my writing schedule. Rest assured that this annoys me as much as it does you, so I will do my utmost not to keep you waiting long! 

Regarding Madame Giry: to the best of my knowledge, neither Leroux nor ALW give us her first name. Some works of fanfiction, both published and online, call her Antoinette; others I have seen include Adele, Charlotte and even Marguerite. I decided on Agathe because I think it suits her.

Today's trivia: The title of this chapter comes from a song by Cold Chisel. If you are not familiar with it, the lyrics are worth a look.

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**Chapter 14 – When the War Is Over**

More than once, Raoul had been on the verge of giving up the search as futile. The Bois de Boulogne was vast, and Christine, walking on foot and unconstrained by the carriage-ways, could be anywhere within it – if she was in the park at all. He was not certain why he persevered so obstinately in heeding the concierge's advice, except that he could not stand the thought of sitting alone in his study like an invalid; he wanted to move, to feel that he was doing something purposeful and sensible. Was it sensible, to wander through a park for hours, his heart leaping at every passerby who bore the slightest resemblance to Christine? Was it _sensible_, to fear that if he did not find her now, he never would?

A landau rolled past. For the briefest moment Raoul thought the dark-haired girl reclining on the plush seat was Christine. She was not. He took the next turn into yet another unexplored path and kept walking.

Gradually the shadows deepened, turning the foliage of the ancient trees dark-green and casting long purple shapes upon the footpaths. Raoul glanced at his fob-watch; it was after seven, and the sun was starting to set. More and more of the people he met along the paths were coming the other way, heading back home or to the cafés or the theatres, emptying the park of voices. After a while, he could hear only the unseen birds.

That was how he found her in the end: by her voice in the growing stillness.

He had turned into a wide alley that led to the lake, and heard laughter. And there they were: two slender figures seated on one of the wrought-iron benches alongside the path, silhouetted like black lace against the fiery glare of sunset. Meg and Christine talked in low, animated voices, their laughter carrying in the still-warm air.

It was mean to resent this laughter, Raoul thought. Irrational. He could not help it.

He walked toward them with a rapid gait, spurred by betrayal.

"_Bon soir_."

The laughter stopped; Christine's head shot up.

"What a charming coincidence, mademoiselle. You're looking well, I see."

"Raoul..."

"Oh, you remember me."

The moment the words were out, Raoul knew he had spoken with the voice of his father, with the acid sarcasm he himself had always detested. A terrible gulf of remorse opened inside him, but he could not apologise.

The remnants of joy froze in Christine's face, then melted away, leaving nothing. Raoul thought wretchedly, _I take away her joy_.

Christine stood up, nervously smoothing the dark skirt that made her seem again the fatherless child, dry-eyed at his funeral. Beside her, Meg said something and went away. Raoul heard her footsteps fading.

He had thought of a thousand things to say while he searched for Christine: about her, about him, about the Phantom, about letting go of the past. All sensible words, all hollow. Instead, he reached into his pocket for the ring:

"You ran off," he said, "and left something behind. Like Cinderella." Raoul smiled crookedly. He had not known it was possible, with his heart breaking.

Christine did not take the ring from his palm, but only looked at it, and then at her own hands. She sighed.

"Please... No more stories."

"You used to love them."

Christine flinched. "I still do. I'm just – not Cinderella, Raoul. Nor Little Lotte, nor any of the others. Only me."

"Don't you think I know that? Christine, I'm in love with _you_. Not with some story."

Christine reached one gloved hand to touch his sleeve; a light, impossibly careful caress, as though she feared she had no right to it. Then she bit her lip, hard.

"I am not in love with you."

Raoul exhaled a breath. He looked aside, to the sunlit path. At its end, the lake glimmered through branches.

"I do love you, with all my heart," Christine's voice was breaking, quietly. "You mean more to me than anyone else in this world. The things you and I remember – the stories, my father's music – everything that's happened, everything that was ours. But I can't keep hurting you—"

"Then don't."

Raoul turned back, his mouth set, and looked at her squarely. Christine's face was half in shadow from the tree behind her, and she stood there, helpless, stranded – just as she had stood on the edge of the underground lake a lifetime ago, knowing there was nothing she could do. _I love you,_ she had promised him silently, only her lips moving.

"One more story," Raoul said, abruptly. "I'll tell you one."

Christine looked at him in consternation, as well she might: Raoul supposed it was only fair; they both knew he had never been one for storytelling. He looked down at his shoes; kicked at a piece of gravel by the bench.

"Let's sit," he suggested.

They sat awkwardly, careful not to touch. All very proper, now. After a pause, he asked:

"Have you ever seen a poppy-seed rattle?"

Christine darted him a surprised glance. "No... I don't think so."

"I have. My father gave me one, when I was small."

"Your father?"

"I suppose he thought it was a curious thing. Maybe he just wanted to give me something." Raoul shrugged, dismissing the question. "It looked strange. A dry, hollow pod on a stalk, with seeds inside. When I shook it, it made a noise like whispers. And I thought – what if I plant the seeds? I could have poppies, hundreds of them."

"I remember the fields," Christine agreed. "Near a town where Father played. They were beautiful."

"That's what I thought, too. So I broke the pod. It cracked open in my hands, and the seeds came out. There were so many, enough for a field. I only had a small patch, in my parents' old house. I planted them, and watered them faithfully, every single day. Only, Christine – nothing grew. Not one plant. Days passed, and then weeks, and nothing happened."

"Why not? Was it too cold?"

"Perhaps. I'm afraid I know no more about poppies now than I did then. But they did not grow. When at last I realised they never would, I remembered that rattle, and the noise it had made. And how my father had looked at me when he gave it to me. And I realised that – I'd destroyed it. I wanted something better, and I destroyed what I had. It was beautiful, that dry thing. In its own way."

He was silent for a while, looking at the bench, the trees, the path.

"We were good friends, Christine. A long time ago."

From the corner of his eye, he saw her nod.

"I wanted to grow old with you," he said simply. "I thought we could be happy."

"So did I. Raoul, I just... Maybe I'm poisoned inside. I don't know how to be happy. From all those stories, I never learned that."

"You are happy. Without me."

"Raoul..."

"Could I kiss you?"

He saw Christine's refusal in her imploring eyes. He ran his hands over his face, roughly. "You kissed the Phantom."

He had not meant to accuse her. He sighed, "Why did you ask Madame Giry for his name?"

"I didn't. This isn't about him."

"No. But what if he should come back to haunt you? I swore to keep you safe."

Christine only looked at him, her eyes bright with unshed tears. Then she shook her head very slightly, and Raoul understood. Her future was closed to him. Her fears were not his to soothe, nor her grief, her laughter, her kiss... Whatever lay ahead – it was no longer his to share. He could not keep her safe now, she wanted to do it herself.

Christine was saying good-bye.

"I could wait," he said at last. "Until November... until you want."

Her tears did fall then, and Raoul knew that these, too, were not his to wipe away. "It is like your poppy-seeds," she said. "They will not grow."

"Yes, I know... You're right."

He rose to his feet numbly, offering his hand to help her up.

"Forgive me, I must go. Allow me to offer you my carriage to take you home; Georges is waiting at the gates." He indicated the direction he had come from.

She looked bewildered. "But what about you?"

"I am expected at Reboul's for supper; it isn't far. I shall walk." He tipped his hat at her and nodded respectfully, in farewell. "My apologies for interrupting your conversation earlier. I will let Georges know to wait for you on my way out. Have a good evening, Christine."

"Raoul, wait!"

He turned in polite inquiry.

"Could we not still be friends? Please..."

He reached forward and took her hand gently, her fingers in his, then let go. "Of course," he said graciously. "We shall always remain friends."

He left her standing near the bench, lit by the last of the sun behind her as though on stage once again. He thought he saw her raise a hand towards him, but he could not look.

When Raoul reached the next bench, he nodded at Meg in passing, to let her know that he had finished taking up Christine's time. His vision seemed blurred a little; the iron gates up ahead appeared to waver like the air above a burning lamp. It did not last long. He reached the row of carriages lined up along the road outside, and found Georges, bored and leafing through a penny magazine of caricatures. The big man reacted without surprise to the instructions regarding conveying the ladies home; Raoul left the matter there and walked on along the footpath until he was out of sight of the carriages. He stopped and looked up at the park to his left, at the wall of trees behind the iron fence and higher, at the colourless sky of early evening. He took out the ring, and pitched it into the thicket.

The diamond winked in the fading light, and disappeared. If its fall made a sound, Raoul did not hear it.

He did not go to Reboul's for supper. The prospect of half a dozen of his friends gathered for food and banter was physically repulsive. Instead, he walked through the city until he could no longer move his legs, and then sat in some all-night _café-concert_ with his chin in his hands, listening to one song succeed another, each of them different, all about love.

In the morning, he returned home to wash, shave and change his clothes. He was perfectly composed when he went to tell his parents. His mother sighed with relief; his father expressed approval with a grip of his shoulder and the offer of a drink, as though it was some sort of celebration. Raoul spent the morning being a dutiful son, and the afternoon being a dutiful patron, smiling at everyone at some art exhibition.

He tried to recall what he had done with his days, before Christine – but he could not remember.

o o o

"Are you all right?" Meg asked, coming to the bench next to which Christine stood, statue-like. Meg squinted against the sunlight. "Would you like to go home?"

Christine shook her head, then glanced back over her shoulder. "Let's walk to the lake."

"It's getting late. _Maman_ will be worried if we're not home for supper."

"We will be; Raoul left us the carriage."

"Left it? What do you mean?"

"He said he would walk, and that Georges will drive us home."

"Christine, you're crying..."

"I know."

Meg went to hug her, but it was like embracing a stone; Christine stood unmoving in the circle of her arms, uncomforted. She made no protest, but Meg knew to leave her to her grief. It was all she could do.

They walked side by side to the lake, as the sun set. The surface shivered in the lightest wind, the water black under the flecks of golden light.

Christine took off a glove and picked up a pebble, then another. Meg thought she would throw them in the water, but she only looked at them for a while, then dropped them to the ground. A flock of ducks rose off the water, quacking and screaming, and disappeared past the trees on the other side.

"It's getting cold," said Christine. "And I don't want to keep Georges waiting. We should go."

"Was it – difficult?" Meg asked, when they turned back along the alley towards the exit. She chided herself mentally for such a clumsy question.

"Yes."

"You are strange, Christine. To do this to yourself..."

"You keep saying that."

"I'm sorry. I'm young and naïve; I'll understand when I'm older."

Meg was gratified to hear the small laugh Christine could not repress – there was only eight months between them. "How do you do this, Meg?"

"What?"

"Make everything seem so... normal."

Meg shrugged, "Everything _is_ normal. If you let it be."

Christine gave her an uncertain smile. "You have an odd idea of 'normal'..."

"Well, I did grow up in an opera house."

Christine shook her head at that, but Meg noticed that she relaxed slightly, and walked with a lighter step.

They came out of the park and onto the street, heading toward Avenue de Neuilly. The street lamps had been lit even though it was still early, and the pale halos of gaslight seemed tenuous against a sky not yet dark. Only three or four carriages were still waiting, and they had no trouble finding the right one. Georges spotted them, hopping down from his box-seat, and he and Christine exchanged all the usual words of greeting while he helped them inside. The door was closed behind them, and they drove off.

The gates of the fortifications reared ahead, welcoming, and then they were again inside the city proper, with its lively cafés and dance-halls, promenading couples and tourists; the endless shimmering lights glowing brighter and brighter against the blue dusk.

It was strange to be there with Christine, watching her stare out the window as though determined to ignore the familiar space inside, devoid of Raoul's presence.

"I shouldn't ask you this," Meg said, "but I will. Are you—"

"Don't ask me if I am sure, Meg. Please don't ask."

She leaned her forehead against the glass, and cried noiselessly all the way home.


	15. Giselle

Here 'tis, the long-awaited (or not) Chapter 15, in which Erik does not marry a puppet (sorry, Phantomy-Cookies), nor does he masquerade as a buttered croissant (sorry, Gondolier), but he does consume a food product of dubious quality. Never let it be said that I don't listen to my reviewers! Really, guys, you mean the world to me – thanks so much for sticking with this story, especially through the recent enforced update drought.

Today's trivia: There really were all kinds of gala performances in Parisian theatres to celebrate the outbreak of the war. The performance described here really took place, though not at the Variétés. Also, the Marseillaise was not at this stage the national anthem; it had been banned for many years under the Second Empire and, to the best of my knowledge, was only legalised shortly before the war.

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**Chapter 15 – Giselle**

Madame Giry met them in the parlour. She had been reading; Christine saw what looked like old letters set before her on the divan, with a loose bit of string around them, untied. Drawn curtains left the evening outside. Within, light from Madame Giry's reading lamp made a circle of warmth around her, casting shadows on the landlord's floral wallpaper. The room was not beautiful, but to Christine's eyes it looked cosy: the brown upholstered divan from Madame Giry's Opéra apartments; the old rug on the floor that had to be rolled away when they practiced for the ballet in defiance of the neighbours' wrath; the polished bulk of the piano and even the porcelain dancer presiding over the empty fireplace, frozen in her perfect second arabesque. Christine touched her palm to the doorjamb, solid wood under her hand. It was good to be home.

"We're back," Meg called, unpinning her hat and letting her hair swing free.

Madame Giry set aside the letter she had been holding as the two girls entered. The corners of her lips curved downward when she noticed Christine's blotchy face. "What is this?"

"I am not crying," Christine said hastily. "Raoul found us in the park, we – talked. Everything is all right."

"You have reconciled?"

"No," Christine admitted. She hid her hands, conscious of the missing ring. "But it is all right," she insisted. "Or, it will be."

Madame Giry did not look convinced.

"_Maman_, is that a picture of you?" Meg had come up to look at what her mother was reading.

Joining her, Christine saw that it was not a letter at all but a watercolour sketch, done on plain writing paper and faded with time. It depicted a dancer in semi-profile, in a white veil and with arms outstretched in the stylised attitude of a ballet farewell, but with her face pleading in a sorrow so deep that it could only be genuine. Meg had been right; the high forehead and elegant line of jaw and cheekbone were unmistakably Madame Giry's.

"May I see? Oh, _maman_ – it's beautiful!"

Madame Giry tolerated her daughter's delighted examination of the sketch with a wry expression. "Well. I was young once also."

"You're still young," Meg huffed.

"Thank you, that is sufficient flattery for the evening. You may go wash your hands and set out things for supper. No, Christine – you stay a moment, please. I would like to show you something."

Surprised, Christine watched Madame Giry pick out three unmarked envelopes from the pile, yellowed around the edges. All three had been opened neatly with a slit across the top.

"What are those?" she asked in some confusion.

"Letters." Madame Giry held out the envelopes for her to take. "You may find them of some interest."

"But surely... Are they not private?"

Madame Giry gave her a look rich with irony. "If memory servers, you and my daughter had no such qualms when you were younger. I fairly had to drag you out of my things."

Christine coloured in embarrassment, but Madame Giry only laughed and pressed the letters into her hand. "They are not private. Come and speak to me when you have read them, Christine – it is important. But supper first."

Christine bobbed her head uncertainly, accepting them. She could not think why Madame Giry would share these with her; she and Meg had only rarely been allowed to look through Madame Giry's old things, and most of those had been news clippings, drawings or trinkets from ballets, never private correspondence. There was little time to wonder, however, because Meg was already setting the table in the dining-room. Christine took the letters to her room, and hurried to the kitchen to help with serving supper.

"Those are ready to go out." Meg nodded at a porcelain tureen of steaming-hot broth, and a basket of fresh bread. "Tell _maman_ I shall be a minute longer. I'll just put the coffee on; Josette forgot to grind it again. She didn't lecture you about Raoul, did she?"

"No... She gave me some letters to read." Christine glanced at Meg, puzzled. "I think they must be from a long time ago."

"Perhaps it is something to do with your father," Meg suggested.

"Oh! I had not thought of it... I hope you're right."

Christine picked up the soup tureen, balancing the bread on top of the lid. "Meg, would you come to the cemetery with me sometime? I haven't been back since – since before the fire, and I don't like to go alone, anymore."

"Of course... Watch the bread!"

Christine caught the basket with her chin before it could slide off the tureen, taking it out to the dining-room in this undignified fashion and earning herself an amused look from Madame Giry. Christine sighed inwardly; if she and Meg ever found a practical way to help with money, it would certainly not be by waiting tables.

Meg followed presently with the rest of their supper and they settled down to a quiet, comfortable meal. Meg and Madame Giry talked little, and then of trivial things that required no more input from Christine than the occasional 'yes' or 'no'. She sensed they were trying to spare her unnecessary chatter, giving her space in which to grieve for Raoul, for the love she had broken. Their kindness shamed her. Madame Giry had warned her from the first that it was unwise to consider marriage so young, yet she looked at her now with compassion, as if she was a sick child instead of a foolish young woman, wilfully blind to the reality outside her dreams.

"The _Théâtre Français_ are putting on a gala for this war," Madame Giry remarked, with a faint grimace of disapproval. "The _Opéra Comique_ as well. What have the _Variétés_ planned?"

"Much the same," said Meg. "We are to put on something about the Revolution, with the whole chorus dressed as washerwomen and soldiers and such, and a ballet about the triumph of the French people... Christine and I are dancing, and Blanche and Helena – but they are still searching for somebody to dress as Liberty and sing the _Marseillaise_."

"What of their regulars?"

"The _Opéra Comique_ has Carlotta; the _Variétés_ want to outdo them."

Christine felt their eyes on her and knew the unspoken question. "They have not asked me."

"They would if they heard you," Meg protested. "Christine, the scandal was so long ago. We've been dancing there three months and the roof has yet to collapse; they know you cannot be as cursed as all that. If you would only audition..."

Christine studied the pattern on the bottom of her empty plate. She knew Meg was right; this was an opportunity she was unlikely to have again. In the feverish atmosphere of competition, the _Variétés_ might be willing to overlook her history and give her another chance – and there was also the question of money to consider... It would mean doing everything all over again. A chorus girl in the limelight, the newspapers snooping for another scandal, just when she had thought it was over.

"I can't. I am out of practice."

"But it is only the _Marseillaise_, not a real opera..."

Madame Giry came to her rescue. "There are better uses for a singing voice than belting out vulgarities about slaughter, Meg; it is bad enough that the two of you must dance them. Let Carlotta have her _Marseillaise_, if she has the heart for it."

She stood up, folding away her napkin, and the meal was at last at an end.

"Do you not miss singing?" asked Meg, while she and Christine cleared away the dishes.

"I do," Christine said quietly. "That's just it. I miss it far too much."

"Then you _should_ sing. Uh!" Meg stopped Christine's objection with an impish look. "I'm finished. I promise; I won't breathe another word about it – after you have auditioned."

"Meg!"

"Singing! Singing! SINGING!"

Christine leapt after her. She never knew afterwards how they managed not to break the crockery in the chase around the dining table, the room, the kitchen, ducking this way and that, laughing, until exhaustion at last forced them to call a truce. They dropped into the old armchairs in the parlour, grinning stupidly at one another.

"Singing," Meg managed, between breaths.

"The neighbours must be on their way right now."

"Let them come." Meg kicked a dusty game box out from under her chair. "Draughts?"

Christine had caught her breath. She thought of Raoul and could not believe she had been laughing. The smile on her face felt like a mask, no longer hers. She remembered the letters.

"I'm going to bed, Meg. I want to read those letters, too."

Meg gave her a small nod as she stood up, gentle and serious once again. "I hope there is something about your father there."

Once in her own room, Christine lit the candle by the bed and took out the three envelopes. She turned them over, curious. None had been marked with a date, but the paper was obviously old. After a moment's hesitation, she picked up one at random and opened it.

Inside was a single sheet of paper, folded in half and in half again. Christine smoothed it out and saw that it was covered with precise, handsome calligraphy. To her surprise, she recognised Madame Giry's own handwriting: the letter was not addressed to her; it was from her. The occasional inkblots suggested a rough copy. Christine sat down at her dressing-table, reading.

The first line made her pause.

_Jules, –_ she read;

_I do not wish to marry you._

The letter was not about her father. It was about Meg's.

o o o

Shortly before the train was due to pull into Sedan, it started to rain. Erik remained in his compartment with the other passengers, all of them suspended in the restless silence of anticipation with nothing more to do than to stare at the interior of the compartment reflected in the impenetrable darkness of the window. Now that the bags had been retrieved from under the benches and the conductor had been paid his tip, entirely unearned, Erik had the impression of a gradual awakening, a return to himself as after a particularly engrossing piece of music. Raindrops hit the glass in rapid diagonals, but their noise was masked by the slowing rattle of the wheels as the train approached town. Watery lights swam out of the distance. A few minutes later the gas-lit platform came into view, and the corridor filled with the now-familiar voices and slamming doors.

"Well, my friends," summed up Egrot, the rotund gentleman who had regaled Erik with his political views – "It has been a most pleasant journey. I thank you all for your company."

"Yes, quite," the others agreed. "Pity about the weather, is it not?" Politenesses were exchanged all around, along with handshakes, bows to the lady, and the a couple of calling-cards. Erik found himself being farewelled for all the world as if he was a dear friend rather than the chance acquaintance of a few hours' travel. He could not decide whether he detested their false intimacy or envied it.

"Whereabouts in Sedan are you staying, Monsieur Andersson?" inquired Egrot, as they filed out into the narrow corridor and crammed themselves into the queue of chattering passengers all waiting to alight. "I can recommend one or two good hotels. You would wish to be somewhere in town, I'll wager, since you're to work on the courthouse."

"I've made my own arrangements," Erik replied vaguely. He had not the least intention of revealing his address to a perfect stranger. It was bad enough that he had been forced to admit to his profession and the nature of his stay in town; he had done this simply because he had not anticipated being asked such things point blank, as if this was a perfectly normal mode of conversation.

He hopped off the train onto the wet platform, after the puffing Egrot.

"Ah, well – then I shall bid you farewell, and the best of luck." Egrot wedged his hat onto his head and opened an umbrella. "If you have cause to visit outside town, I would be delighted to welcome you to my house in Bazeilles, though I vow I shall not risk another game of piquet with you, monsieur!"

Erik decided the last was meant as a compliment to his win. The man was not a bad sort really, despite his love of politics. "I have your card, Monsieur Egrot. _Au revoir_."

"_Au revoir._ Ah, there's the baggage now. Porter!" Egrot called, hurrying to where he could see the larger trunks being unloaded from the last car onto the baggage-carts.

Erik's only baggage was his bag and a half-size folio containing his sketches for the courthouse; he would not have allowed his things to be handled by random strangers even if he had been forced to carry an entire trunk of supplies. He threw his cloak over his shoulders, enclosing the bag and folio as well, and set out towards the interior of the train station.

Inside, it was warm and dry, but noisy with the echoing dissonance of bad acoustics he had come to associate with all train stations. At only ten in the evening, the place was nearly deserted; the only voices seemed to belong to the passengers who had come on the Paris train with him. Sedan was evidently no Paris, to come alight in the small hours. Erik purchased a map of town and, as a concession to the demands of his stomach, a hot greasy pie filled with a green gloop which the vendor assured him was 'mostly peas'. What the remainder was, Erik deemed it safer not to inquire. It tasted better than it looked, and he managed to wolf down another three while he located an empty hansom cab outside the station.

"Where to, sir?" asked the soggy-looking driver, slapping the reins lightly when his horse turned with an appreciative sniff at the smell of the last pie in Erik's hands.

"Rue Saint-Michel."

The horse trotted off. It was a brown shaggy animal, which constantly flicked its wet tail in Erik's direction, showering the bare half of his face with tiny droplets in the open cab. Erik took a good look at the map before putting it away, and he mentally traced the route as the cab pitched and slid through the flooded streets. The town was not as small as he had been led to believe, but the wet, dull facades meeting his curious gaze were completely unlike those of Paris. Erik made a mental note of the medieval fortress on the hill, its walls visible only as a darker shape against the rainclouds; of the spire of the church; of the old industrial building identified on the map as a textiles mill. The houses looked provincial, solid and wholesome and rather underdecorated. The footpaths, where they existed, were of cobblestones rather than asphalt, and in this weather they seemed to be all gutter, foaming and chattering with the rain. Nowhere could Erik spot a dance-hall, a café or so much as a tavern, but he did notice a soggy poster on a news-stand, advertising a performance by some church choir.

By the time the cab came squeaking and squelching into rue Saint-Michel, Erik had decided that Vincent Fiaux was likely right: the town's motto could well have been "Sedan: Puritanical And Proud Of It." It would be easy work to design a courthouse to suit this place. The outlines of the portico, pilasters, staircases rose in Erik's mind as easily as if his hand had started to trace them. It was not music, but it was something.

Perhaps it could be enough.

o o o

Christine tried to slip the sheet of paper back into its envelope, but her hands would not do as she wanted.

It was one thing to know vaguely that Meg's father and Madame Giry had not married, had gone their separate ways before Meg had been born. It was quite another to be confronted with it directly. Christine could not understand Madame Giry's purpose; she had no wish to know the particulars, it felt too much like prying, like a violation of the past. Surely Madame Giry did not intend by this means to persuade her to reconcile with Raoul? Christine half-wished she could return the remaining letters unread, but she knew she would not.

She took out the second letter with a sharp, defiant tug, ashamed at her curiosity.

_Mademoiselle Giry,_

_Forgive my impertinence in thus contacting you directly, particularly on what could only be a difficult and personal matter. I assure you that I would not have taken such a step had I not been compelled to do so by my discovery of the conduct of M. Robuchon, who has been my dearest friend these past ten years, and whose actions I must therefore regard in the same light as I would the actions of my own brother or myself._

_I have been given to understand by M. Robuchon, upon my return from Marseilles, that the connection between him and yourself has now been severed for some weeks, and that he has no further intentions in this regard; this, despite your delicate state. Naturally, I expressed my dismay at what I felt to be an ill-made decision, at which M. Robuchon further informed me that he had in fact offered you a certain sum of money, which you have refused, and that he therefore considers the matter to be out of his hands._

_Our acquaintance has not been long, mademoiselle, but I have always felt you to be a young woman of great good sense, and I imagine you must have your reasons for refusing my friend's offer and thus leaving yourself in what seems to me an unnecessarily dire predicament. It is only for the sake of honour that I am thus forced to trouble you with my concern; I own it has occurred to me that the situation may not be entirely as M. Robuchon has described it. Should this be so, I consider myself honour-bound to extend such help as I may, where my friend's thoughtlessness (for I cannot believe it malice) has failed you._

_I assure you that you may rely on my utmost discretion in this matter._

The letter was signed "Jean-Marie Duchamp". The date in the corner was June 15, 1853; six months before Meg's birth. Christine shook her head, mystified. Surely it should be Meg reading this, not her...

Evidently, Madame Giry had declined the offer of money once again, because when Christine opened the third letter, she found no text at all, but only an address. The town was unfamiliar, but from the name – Mme. Duchamp-Pierot – Christine understood it to be the house of some female relation of Monsieur Duchamp's. A sister, perhaps. In the same envelope was a small drawing, another watercolour like the one Madame Giry had been looking at earlier. Christine took it out. A white ballerina stood alone on a blue-dark stage, with the hazy white line-up of the _corps_ behind her. It had been signed, _For 'Giselle'. Jules R. 1852._

There was nothing else.

Christine re-closed the envelopes and held them with both hands, lining up the edges nervously against the dresser. An awful suspicion had been growing inside her; the more she thought of it, the more certain she became. She knew why Madame Giry had meant for her to see these letters. Christine recalled her own words, blurted out that very morning: _I opened the window, and the Phantom came inside._

And Madame Giry had assumed—

_Oh God_. For some reason Christine wanted to laugh. Or cry. The edges of her mouth tightened; her eyes prickled. She had never been so grateful for the absence of a mirror on the dresser. She rose from the chair, paced around, sat on the bed, got up, took the letters again, went to the window. Stood there, her hands scrunching the heavy curtains.

A thought flitted through her mind: If she opened the window, would he come back?

She released the curtains and went back to her dressing-table. There, she took out the first letter again, then the second, then the note from the third, arranging them all in front of her. Somehow, knowing that it was a misunderstanding made it easier; she could stop thinking of herself. Christine opened the first letter again and began to read, carefully and without resentment. Some time passed, and she forgot everything else; there were only these few terse words, a piece of another's life entrusted to her hands. She felt a peculiar admiration for this woman who was the closest thing to a mother she could recall – but who was not her mother, who could make mistakes like her own. It was kinship, of a sort. Perhaps that was what Madame Giry had wanted her to see all along.

When she finished reading, Christine blew out the candle and went to take the letters back to Madame Giry.

She padded in her stockings across the cool parquet of the dining-room, and into the short corridor that led to Madame Giry's dressing-room. The door had been left open. Beyond it, a slice of candle-light under the bedroom door told her that Madame Giry was still awake.

"Come in," Madame Giry's voice called from within when she knocked.

Christine opened the door a little. Madame Giry turned around; she was sitting at her dressing-table with the candle lit and a book lying open before her. She still wore her day clothes, but her braid fell loose down her back. The dresser was hardly more ornate than Christine's own, save that it had a mirror and there were drawings and clippings pasted all around the frame, as a sort of scrapbook. Christine smiled a little, remembering how she and Meg had used to climb up to get a better look at the pictures. She closed the door and came inside.

Madame Giry accepted the letters from her hand. "You have read them?"

Christine stood near the second chair near the dressing-table, but did not sit down. "May I ask you something..."

"Certainly."

"Why did you not marry Monsieur Robuchon?"

The shadow of a smile touched Madame Giry's eyes. She closed the book she had been reading, not bothering to mark the page. "Life is not a novel, my dear. Or an opera. Come, sit down."

Christine pulled out the chair obediently, settling her skirts against the worn plush seat.

Madame Giry looked at Christine's face in the mirror for a moment, the two of them reflected side-by-side. "I was a dancer, ambitious – I did not wish to marry him, and he did not wish to marry me." She spoke gently. "It was not clever of us, to do as we did. The young are not always clever."

Christine had no choice but to nod agreement.

Madame Giry looked at her, seriously. "We need not talk about this now, if you do not wish to. But you must be aware that if something comes of this..."

"It won't," Christine said quickly. She struggled to find the words, painfully embarrassed all over again. "You mistook my meaning, Madame Giry. About that night... It was not like that," she explained helplessly. "He did kiss me but – nothing more. I was angry, and—"

She broke off. Madame Giry had closed her eyes and raised her hands to her face; then, to Christine's complete horror, her shoulders began to shake. She was laughing.

"I'm sorry to have made you think otherwise... Madame Giry?"

"It is all right." She was still laughing, quietly and with tears running down her cheeks. Christine had never seen anything like it.

"Do not look at me so; I am only – relieved. It seems I would do well to take my own advice."

"What advice?" Christine wondered.

"That life is not an opera."

Madame Giry brushed the tears away, impatiently. She gave Christine's hand a rueful pat. "Christine Daaé, you must promise me something. You will never again invite a man into your room through the window."

"All right," Christine agreed, "But then I shall need another tall mirror..."

She saw that she had startled Madame Giry, and so she grinned, feeling somehow light-hearted.

"You must not joke like that," said Madame Giry, and this time her tone was very dark. "It was unforgivable, the things that were done to you."

She was blaming herself, Christine saw – and she wondered at the strange mood lifting her up, this lightness inside her that made her want to embrace Madame Giry in friendship, in forgiveness, without awe. For the first time since the awful conversation with Raoul she allowed herself to catch up with the thought: I am free.

"It is in the past," Christine said aloud, marvelling. She sought Madame Giry's troubled eyes in reassurance. "I am free now."

Madame Giry studied her a moment. Then she nodded in the familiar, brisk way, and said:

"We must meet with him."

Christine thought she had misheard. Her lightness crashed to earth, hard. "What... What do you mean?"

"Only that. A dinner, perhaps, here."

"A dinner."

"Or supper. I assure you, he does eat."

Christine was certain the floor had moved somewhere from under her chair. She felt weightless and sick, falling down into an endless well. All she could manage was an appalled, "Why?"

"Because you are not free, Christine. Not while he remains thus, unreal."

Madame Giry unlocked the drawer of the dresser to put away the letters. When she spoke again, her voice was thoughtful. "He has been too long a ghost. We have all come to believe it, even he, and that illusion is dangerous – you would never have allowed a man to do as he did that night, and no man would behave so. Yet he is a man. That is _all_ he is."

She turned the key to lock the drawer, and raised her eyes to Christine. "I will do nothing you cannot bear, you may have my word. But there cannot be another morning like this one. Not again. Christine, do you understand?"

After a moment, Christine rose, unsteadily. The fragile sense of camaraderie was gone; she felt adrift again, alone.

The worst of it was that it was true; she did see a ghost. The ghost of a man, the shadow of a voice. Nine years of hearing his voice through the walls; nine _years_. How could she be free?

"I would like to... think on it."

"Yes," Madame Giry said, "of course."


	16. En face

**To all my reviewers: I can't thank you enough for your support, guys! Reviews are my window into the reader's mind, they help me enormously, so thanks for giving me so much fantastic, thoughtful feedback (and please do keep it up!).**

Editing this A/N to add a response to a review: The word 'comprise' is used correctly here. It means 'contain', rather than 'consist', and as such does not take a preposition - so something that "consists of" several rooms can be said to "comprise" them. As it happens, I do some professional writing as a part of my job, so grammar doesn't tend to be a problem, but I figured I'd say this here in case anyone else is confused. :)

Briefly addressing some queries regarding my take on Mme Giry: Giry is her maiden name, that's why M. Duchamp's letter is addressed to her as "Mlle Giry". She is called "madame" because a woman of a certain age, especially with a grown daughter, would not be called "mademoiselle", just as Carlotta is not called "signorina". It would be a bit embarrassing.

Today's trivia: The average marriage age for women in Paris at the time was 27. From this figure alone you can surmise that Paris was no 1950s suburbia, particularly when it came to the artistic circles, but really this was true to some extent across all classes. I make a point of this because I want to make it very clear that Mme. Giry's backstory is in no way meant to represent her as a "loose woman" or a victim: she is neither, only a former ballerina who has had her own life, not so different from the lives of many of her contemporaries.

Trivia for this chapter: All the locations mentioned here actually existed.

* * *

**Chapter 16 – _En face_**

Sedan in the morning was a surprisingly different prospect from Sedan of the night before. The rain had given it the aspect of a newly washed toy-box, sparkling with sunlight. The same façades that had appeared so drab in the dark were revealed as a gingerbread palette of ochres and reds, and even the modern balconies slapped onto Louis XV window pelmets were made less ludicrous by the profusion of geraniums.

Erik contemplated this from his private study in what turned out to be a decent little lodging-house in rue Saint-Michel. It was not a pretentious edifice like the much larger Hôtel de la Croix d'Or, but it was spacious enough for his needs, and he had the entire top floor to himself. The landlady, a small wizened woman who had been only too happy to humour Erik's reluctance to make smalltalk, had shown him the apartment upon his arrival. It comprised a bedchamber, a small sitting-room, and a study that seemed made for an architect: in addition to the usual bureau there was also a wide table suitable for draughting, and the two oversized windows facing the street could be opened to flood the room with light. Erik knew at once that this study had been the reason for Monsieur Duchamp's recommendation of the lodging-house, and he had to concede that the place was well-chosen.

It was, without a doubt, the furthest he had ever come from his lair in the Opéra.

He went to the windows, flung the curtains wide and opened the frames. Light poured into the room. Erik appraised the work-table, the paper, his tools. It will do, he decided. Except for...

His eyes fell on a portrait that hung on the wall opposite, above the bureau. It was a likeness of the Empress Eugénie, an inexpensive charcoal drawing in a gilded frame, of the sort sold to adorn the empty spot above the mantlepiece in every respectable home. Even Jean and Louise owned one, although theirs was displayed prominently in the store to discourage the police from uncharitable thoughts. Erik took the portrait down, holding it between his hands. He inspected the haughty Spanish profile, the sharply parted hair and the half-lidded eyes to which pale lashes imparted an almost sleepy look, with the mild distaste of a man looking at a silk flower. Its ersatz perfection was beautiful only to those who had never seen a real, living rose.

Setting the portrait face-down on the draughting table, he carefully slipped the backing off and removed the drawing. The blank side was clean, unfaded by time. From his drawing box, Erik selected a stick of red chalk and set to work. The paper took well to the soft touch of colour, the smudge of shadow that suggested the curve of a cheek, the line of an eyebrow, the curl of an earlobe half-concealed by shining hair falling free as the night. White chalk added highlights and charcoal the deeper shadows, bringing out the play of candlelight in Christine's beautiful, unsmiling eyes. Each line was perfect, drawn with a confidence born of long practice.

Yet when less than an hour later the portrait was complete, Erik studied it with dissatisfaction. At first he thought it a trick of the light – he had not attempted such a drawing in full daylight before – but he knew, looking at the frozen moment he had captured so faithfully, that he had done no more than the anonymous author of the portrait of the Empress. He had reproduced the image in his mind, cured of any imperfections and retouched until it was nothing more than a silk flower.

Once again he picked up the chalk, but not to draw familiar lines. Hesitantly, he added a tiny mark on Christine's right cheek, changing the perfect symmetry. Closing his eyes to call up the image of her face as it really was, as he had seen it last, he began to draw her, with heady recklessness putting to paper everything: the shadows under her eyes, the anger in the curve of her mouth. The perfected mannequin disappeared. In its place was Christine.

The charcoal stick shook in Erik's fingers as he surveyed the result. With unsteady hands, he did what he had never dared to do before: moved the corner of the drawing up, and signed his name.

Erik.

It remained there, a tiny charcoal squiggle under this unsettling, real, dizzying likeness of Christine. His name, her face.

Before he could change his mind, Erik slid this new drawing into the frame and hung it back on the wall. Already the fear was returning, the knowledge that he ought not to have done this, that he was supposed to have left all this behind him in Paris. Yet in the locked drawer of the bureau was the ring Christine had given him – him, or the wreck he had been – and perhaps the portrait was just the same... Only something to remind him of her, something to keep him from madness. Only that.

Resolutely, Erik turned from Christine. Picking up his sketchbook and hat from the bureau, he headed downstairs. It was time to get to work.

So late in the morning, the coffee-room on the ground floor was empty, save for three or four stragglers still nursing their cups at the tables on the veranda. Erik strode past them, under the dappled shade of the vine-covered trellis, and out into the street. He was not hungry enough to breakfast with strangers, and in any case he wanted first to satisfy his curiosity as to the present state of the site designated for the courthouse.

A restless energy compelled him, as though he was still driven by the momentum of his escape from Paris. Despite the puddles and mud-clogged gutters, he wanted to walk. The shimmering, sundrenched streets were as strange as any he had known: too empty and prosperous to bear any resemblance to the bustling bohemia of Montmartre, too provincial for the grand boulevards of Paris. Walking down the rue Saint-Michel, Erik felt he was still in a train, looking out at the world through the window of a tiny compartment. A few locals hurried past, mostly market-women or the occasional errand boy, and once a pair of ladies dressed in what they must have assumed to be the latest fashions in Paris.

The site designated for the courthouse was not far from Place du Château, among some old houses and overlooked by the immense fortress with pointed conical roofs, its old masonry glowing rose in the morning light. There was no sign of either fence or overseer. All that met Erik's eyes was a levelled foundation, turned into a little desert with dunes of rubble and sand. Piers of grey stone stuck out awkwardly from it where the first level was to have been raised, like an ancient labyrinth gone to ruin. Erik stepped over a pile of debris to take a closer look.

This courthouse had been a project shunted from architect to architect for several years, falling victim first to a lack of money in Sedan's public coffers, then to a string of disagreements on the proposed appearance of the building's façade. Having walked through the town, Erik could scarce believe that the same people who disfigured 200-year old buildings with bland ironwork balconies should be so finicky about their courthouse, but of course a courthouse had to be beautiful: only then would its rulings be believed. Beauty was truth, truth – beauty. Erik smirked bitterly to himself. He was looking forward to starting on the design. An escaped murderer with the face of a gargoyle, paid by the mob to build their temple to Beauty and Law. It would be his private joke on the world.

A rag-tag group of local urchins had turned the foundation into a fort. Erik stopped his inspection when he saw them: three boys and one curly-headed blonde girl were heaving crates and rubble to the centre of the site, trying to move their fort to higher ground after the night's rain.

He had hesitated a moment too long; the oldest of them noticed him. The boy moved at once to a defensive position, putting his tall gawky frame between the others and Erik.

"Who're you?" he demanded, raising his chin.

Erik touched his hat-brim, with chilly irony. "An architect. And you, monsieur, are trespassing."

The kid blinked, unsettled by being addressed as 'monsieur', or perhaps by the bandage masking half the stranger's face. "Huh?"

Erik translated: "_Run_."

"Yeah? Or what?"

Erik gave him a languid, dangerous smile, until a genuine spark of fear appeared in the kid's eyes. "Or it will be too late."

The boy took a step back, stumbling into the other three. Then they turned tail and bolted, screaming, across the crunching gravel and into the trees. Erik grinned to himself: there were ballet rats everywhere, even here in Sedan. Yet his flicker of amusement vanished almost before he had felt it. He looked at the miserable fort the brats had abandoned, and felt something akin to embarrassment. It was not pleasant.

"You have a way with children, Monsieur Andersson!" guffawed a man behind him.

Erik turned around, displeased. "Monsieur Egrot. To what do I owe the pleasure? I had thought you reside in Bazeilles."

"A fortunate chance, monsieur, a fortunate chance indeed!" Egrot, red-faced as ever, shook Erik's hand, indicating at the same time the young man beside him: "My son, Henri."

"Monsieur," Erik said by way of greeting the son: a tall youth of no more than twenty with his father's round face, wearing the red trousers and navy jacket that Erik had seen soldiers wear at the Reims train station.

"Pleasure to meet you, sir. Father, we had best be going... Mother wanted to visit aunt Thérèsa next."

"Yes yes, go on; don't keep her waiting alone. I'll join you shortly." Egrot watched his son retreat to the street, where a woman sat waiting in an outmoded carriage, before turning back to Erik.

"His number came up, and he's rearing to go. The young! Boundless energy for these things. My wife insisted we come into town with him, you see – he must be shown off to all the relations now he's a soldier. She coddles him senseless of course, but the army'll put him right, never fear. Still, the poor woman won't have a moment's peace until Henri is back safe."

Erik interrupted this string of cheerful nonsense by hefting his sketchbook: "My apologies, monsieur. As you see, I am busy."

"Of course, of course!" Egrot made an effort at grasping the concept that a man could be more interested in his work than in idle chat, and failed completely. "You've looked at this old ruin, then?"

"I am still looking. If you don't mind."

"Right you are. If anyone can make something of it, a clever chap like you ought to manage. The last one they brought in – another young architect from Paris, wet around the ears and clutching his degree – well, you can see how far he got!" Egrot gestured at the empty foundation. "No idea of what makes this town tick, none at all. Have you someone to show you the town, then?"

"I am quite capable of seeing it myself," Erik said; "I have in my possession an adequate map."

"What, no guide! Well, I shall be glad to show you around, if you would allow me the honour – and see if you don't find the place more to your liking than that map of yours might suggest! This wreck," he nodded at the courthouse foundation, "has been here for years, another couple of hours will do it no harm."

Nothing Erik said appeared to make the least impression on the impenetrable wall that was Egrot's hospitality. The man had a provincial's conviction that his little corner of the world was Paradise for all, most particularly for Parisian architects with no concept of the wonder that was Sedan and its surrounds. In addition, he was obviously itching for another political discussion, and was determined to seize his chance to get one. Erik had no notion of how to evade this barrage of unwelcome goodwill. At last, it occurred to him that perhaps there was no need to evade it. Any time spent listening to Egrot and his half-baked ideas of politics was time not spent thinking of Paris and Christine.

"Come to think of it, I shall take up your invitation." He favoured Egrot with an indulgent look. "I am, indeed, quite unlike your other architects. I should like you to show me the town."

"Splendid! A moment; I must let my wife know to go on without me." Egrot pronounced this with such obvious relief that Erik realised he had underestimated him: The man's hospitality may have been genuine enough, but what drove him was a simple unwillingness to spend all day showing off his soldier son to ageing relations.

Cynical as this was, Erik decided it was a motive he could trust. At any rate, the alliance required nothing more of him than to listen to Egrot's anecdotes about the town, and it gave him the opportunity to examine the buildings at closer quarters without the risk of drawing too much attention to his bandages or his obviously out-of-town appearance.

The tour took most of the day. Erik spoke little, merely observing and allowing Egrot to demonstrate proudly all of Sedan's dazzling attractions, from the windmill on the Meuse river to the brothel in the rue des Laboureurs. The one place Erik himself had been curious to see was the fortress, but this was closed for the use of the army and only soldiers were allowed either in or out. At one point they went into a church, where a bloodied effigy of a man was hung in front of a genuine pipe organ.

"My sort of place," Erik had remarked dryly. At Egrot's curious look, he merely smiled and gestured for him to proceed outside. The image of the organ prickled Erik's imagination for a while afterwards, whispering of music; he quelled those thoughts with what was becoming almost a habit.

The afternoon would have been surprisingly enjoyable, was it not for the way it ended.

They had made their way to the railway station with barely enough time to see Henri off, which seemed to be the way Egrot had intended it.

"Terrible things, farewells," he told Erik, "Can't stand them. This way, monsieur."

The train was an army transport, half of it cattle-trucks and half third class carriages, taking supplies and soldiers down to the main camp at Châlons. Clouds of thick black smoke already issued from the locomotive, filling the air with the smell of burning coal, and the platform was packed solid with mothers and sweethearts weeping heartily. Erik indicated that Egrot should precede him, while he himself remained behind the barricade of human backs and heads, content to watch this forest of upraised hands and fluttering handkerchiefs. He caught sight of Henri Egrot's round face as the boy mounted the steel step of the carriage and turned to wave to his parents: a single face among dozens of other young men hanging out of the windows and doors, all of them hollering cheerfully and searching for familiar faces. The train began to move. The human barricade was briefly dragged alongside it as people ran forward, trying to keep their sons and lovers in sight a little longer. After a moment the slower ones fell back one by one, until the train gained speed and with a piercing hoot left even the fastest of them behind. Erik could not understand why some women continued waving long after the train had vanished from view, when they must have known the soldiers could no longer see them.

He spotted Egrot and his wife walking back towards him. Egrot raised his hand cheerfully, but Erik barely noticed: it was the expression on Madame Egrot's plain, pointed face that gave him a sharp jolt. He recognised that look.

She was not weeping, nor had she waved a handkerchief after her son the way other women had done – but in that very blankness was something familiar. Erik identified it, and was at once frightened and repulsed: he himself had felt that same numbness when he had watched Christine leave him, disappearing into the murky distance of the canal. Loss, death. Love, futile love.

Losing her son, this stranger of a woman wore his face.

Egrot greeted him and Erik responded with a nod. He could not speak, he did not want to. The woman's face had spoiled everything. No longer was he watching everything from afar, he was here among them, momentarily one of this crowd of nameless creatures with their many griefs. A part of him hated it. A stronger, monstrous, undefeated part of his soul longed to get back to his rooms and the portrait of Christine. She was human. She was human, too.

"Would you do us the honour of spending a few days at Bazeilles, Andersson?" Egrot asked. "Madame Egrot and I would welcome the diversion of company, and perhaps you'll appreciate a little country air for yourself."

"Yes," Erik agreed sharply. He could not see that portrait again, not now. It was too hard, nobody could ask such strength of him. He was only one man. "Country air would be most welcome."

That evening, in the beautiful village of Bazeilles, he began work on the first drawings for the courthouse. No music, no mirrors, no Christine – no portraits. Erik Andersson examined the precise lines he had ruled in his sketchbook, and thought he was learning.


	17. Snakeskin

Thanks so much for the reviews, guys! I was particularly happy about the different reactions to M. Egrot's character. A bit of ambivalence is a good thing. ;)

More Erik in this chapter.

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**Chapter 17 – Snakeskin**

"Away from Paris?"

Madame Giry gave a slight nod. "It is an out-of-town commission for an architect's office. I am told he should be back within a fortnight."

Christine put down the stocking she had been mending. She was alone with Madame Giry this evening; Meg had gone to call on Helena Weiss and Christine had declined to join them, shrinking from the idea of such a visit after her shameful scene at the _Variétés_. She should have known better than to hope for a quiet evening in her room. Madame Giry seemed determined to keep her from wallowing in self-pity, and to this end they were now sitting on the divan in the parlour with a pile of mending between them. It was necessary work, but Christine could not concentrate. Not after this news.

"An architect," she repeated. "He is an architect, in a city office?" She heard her voice rising in bewilderment.

Madame Giry acknowledged her surprise. "I'm sorry. I should have told you sooner."

"Two weeks..." Christine was at a loss. It had cost her a horrible, sleepless night to come to the decision to meet with him, only to find out now that he was out of town. He was busy.

She struggled to juxtapose the image of the Phantom with that of a city architect: one of those polished gentlemen with a folio under one arm and a ivory-topped cane in the other, striding purposefully along the boulevards to some office in town. It was neither ridiculous nor amusing. It hurt.

Thinking of him these past months, she had imagined the man she had seen so briefly, only twice: a scarred man with unkempt hair and bare face, with eyes that burned her with their pain and fury, a man whose mouth she had wanted to touch... In her mind, she had learned to call him by name. Yet now she thought of the way he had looked long before that: the elegant suit and the gleaming, spotless mask. She could picture that man as an architect, easily – but she could not give him his name.

So he had moved on with his life, left behind the Opéra and the things he had done, the burnt theatre, the murders, the broken lives.

While she was at home, in the parlour, sewing up stockings and petticoats, without a fiancé, without her singing, with her entire future turned to a mess of uncertainty. Afraid to visit her father's tomb, jumping at shadows because she imagined the walls sighing her name, carrying memories of horrors she would keep to the end of her days. This was all the life he had left her... And she could not meet with him for two weeks – because he was busy.

Madame Giry's needle flashed in the lamp-light as she fixed the last stitch and snipped the thread. Christine picked up her own sewing, attacking the torn stocking with a renewed determination.

"Then you still wish to meet with him?" Madame Giry asked from the other side of the divan.

"Yes." Christine did not look up. She softened her voice slightly, not wishing to be rude. "Yes, please write to him. What is his last name?" It occurred to her that she did not know it.

"Andersson," Madame Giry said slowly. "It is the name he gave Monsieur Duchamp; I have not heard it before."

"All right." Christine turned the stocking around to finish darning the toe. "Then I'll see Monsieur Andersson. I don't think we have ever had a civilised meeting before. There are things to say." She shook her head slightly, at herself. "You were right, Madame Giry. I have had more than my fill of mystery."

And for the next two weeks, she strove to convince herself of that. She went to dance rehearsals for the huge gala in support of the soldiers; she ate and slept and went to art shows with Meg and Madame Giry, she strolled through the park. Yet she still woke up in the night thinking she had heard the shadows crying, and when she tried her voice, she found she could not sing. Once, she and Meg caught the omnibus from the theatre up to the cemetery, but halfway there Christine thought of the last time she had gone to her father's tomb. She had known by then there was no angel, but still she could not resist his voice. Grabbing Meg's wrist, she all but dragged her off the omnibus, jostling the other passengers in her haste.

If the supper with Monsieur Andersson could be tomorrow, Christine thought, it would not be soon enough.

o o o

In all the years of existence that had passed for Erik's life, he had never imagined he could become a guest in another's home.

This victory was so unexpected, so unlikely, that at first he felt only a confused cheer, like a man clubbed over the head who awakens to forget all about his wallet. Egrot and his wife had invited him in, blissfully unaware that he was a murderer who knew little more than the descent from a cage to the lowest cellar, from hatred to madness to death. Erik watched them at dinner, this provincial woman and her husband whose only claim to distinction was a monthly trip all the way to Paris. They ceded him the empty chair that had been their son's, and served him their food, and they seemed to want nothing from him. Erik wondered what would happen if they knew.

Their home in Bazeilles was a short ride from Sedan, and he found himself lured again and again by the warmth of that sturdy house, by the squares of light in the windows, by the glimpse of a life that was not his and could never be his. In a different way, this dream was almost as dangerous as the portrait of Christine in the lodging-house in Sedan, but he could not give it up. There was power in the knowledge of who he really was, and in their ignorance.

Sometimes, Erik imagined telling them, before they could stumble on the truth themselves. He thought he could kill them both, and have this dream remain with him forever, unspoiled.

Mostly, however, he found he was content in that village.

He walked the forest paths, moving through the cool green light of summer, breathing in the moist smells of life that were so unlike the chill dampness of the Opéra. There was nothing like this in the city, and Erik found himself continually amazed by the details: the shape of an oak leaf that was like and yet unlike the gilded leaves in picture-frames; the quick dart of a squirrel; the sound of water that lapped at pebbles and grass instead of cold stone.

It was only natural that he should incorporate these things into the design for the courthouse. The preliminary sketches he had brought with him from Paris were duly consigned to the trash pile. Instead Erik expanded on the ideas he had put to paper on his first night in Bazeilles, interpreting for builders and engineers the lines of forest and river, the view from the windows of a train, the tendrils of grapevines and pots of geraniums spilling from the windowsills. The Egrots seemed flattered by his requests to see more of the surrounds, and Erik rewarded them occasionally by a display of one or other of his drawings. A fragment of a decorative pilaster or some other trinket was enough to fascinate these uncomplicated minds.

He did not entirely abandon his rooms in Sedan, but he had shut up the bright study with the nerve-singeing portrait on the wall, and never went inside. When he had to work there, he cleared a space on the small table in the bedchamber and made do with that. More often, he took his work to Bazeilles.

Two days before he was due to depart for Paris, the news came through that the army had need of extra transport carriages and locomotives. Egrot questioned Erik incessantly about the significance of this, eager to share his opinion that this could only mean a push into German territory, and thus that a great battle was imminent. These speculations invariably sent Madame Egrot flying white-faced to her chambers, and brought on grumbles from Egrot about losing his wife along with his son while this nonsense continued. Erik, whose already limited interest in the whole affair had evaporated completely in recent weeks, could condone only so much pointless debate before his irritation surfaced.

"Did you not suggest fishing, Egrot?" he asked at last, in the hope of diverting the man's attention to something that would not require him to talk of politics, or indeed, at all. "I had some hope of seeing your famed fishing sites before I must leave again for Paris."

"Ah yes! Yes, indeed. Blast it, why did you not remind me sooner? We shall have to go tomorrow, first thing! The early fish catches the worm... or was it bird? Well, you and I shall catch that early fish, my friend."

Erik assured Egrot that the prospect filled him with unspeakable delight, and true to his word, Egrot met him in the kitchen at the crack of dawn, bristling like a hedgehog with rods and fishing tackle. Curious about the function of all these odd-looking items, Erik joined him. They made their way past shuttered houses to the outskirts of the village, then through a patch of tame woods still dim with pre-dawn shadows, heading down to the river.

The forest air grew lighter as they walked, becoming noisy with the trill of birds, which Erik had learned to identify by their voices. Occasionally Egrot would point out the name of a shrub or tree, as he often did on these walks, and Erik took these lessons with better humour than he thought he could have managed two weeks ago. They came out onto the riverbank, into the bright sunlight of true morning.

"Now you'll see how it's done, mind my word!" said Egrot, and Erik quirked a brow in response, humouring the challenge.

"Be wary, Monsieur Egrot. I may not have done this before, but I am a fast learner."

"We shall see, we shall see," Egrot chuckled as he unfolded the two fishing-stools and began to set up the rods.

Soon after they had set themselves up in the shade of a willow, in Egrot's preferred spot on a little elevation above a bend in the river, other fishermen appeared. They nodded their good-mornings as they passed them and, Erik noticed with amusement, cast an eye to the empty bucket between him and Egrot, in what could only be a superior fashion.

The morning wore on in a pleasant, sleepy near-silence. There was no talk, but dragonflies and clouds of gnats buzzed over the water, and a light wind made the river mutter to itself, glittering in the sunlight. Erik shifted in his seat, trying to arrange his long legs around the fishing-stool. Although he could not seem to find the same comfort in the pose that Egrot's stouter, shorter frame suggested, Erik thought he could appreciate why people did this. He looked down the riverbank, at the distant clumps of other men bent over their fishing-rods. They gave the impression of people who were content to do this all day, snoozing in the sun.

He was still trying to imitate their laziness when all of a sudden, Egrot leapt up with a whoop.

"Here he comes! Oho, look at that!"

Erik found himself on his feet as well, caught up in the man's excitement. Egrot fought to keep steady, reeling in the line as the rod flexed under the weight of something living – and there it was. A silver fish rose out of the water in sinuous jerks, scales glittering and flashing in the sun. Egrot gave another cry of pure triumph, reaching for his prey.

Erik backed away.

He was gagging; the fish seemed centimetres from his face. It stank. It stank foully of death. Blood trickled out of its mouth and its eyes bulged out...

A corpse. A corpse dangling on the end of a line. Blood and bulging eyes, a dead man, a dead ballet girl in a white dress. Egrot's look of triumph was ghastly as he pulled the steel hook from the corpse's mouth and flung it into the underground lake... no, the bucket of water... the water turning a thin pink from the blood.

"Beauty, isn't he? What did I tell you!"

Egrot's joy-distorted face, his pride at his catch, was worse than a mirror. Erik recoiled, nauseated. He took a step back, then another.

Was this how he himself had looked when he dropped a man from the flies to plunge to his death? This bright sickness in the eyes, a killer's glee – was this the face Christine had fled from?

No, his was worse. Of course. Christine's voice whispered in his head: _Hardly a face in the darkness... The darkness..._

"Andersson?"

"Get away from me!" he roared. With an immense effort he managed to hold Egrot's bewildered gaze, enough to say – "I must have eaten something – I am not well – forgive me..."

Egrot let him go. For that alone, Erik thought later, he would be grateful to the end of his days.

That night he could not breathe. Back in Sedan, the air came in sharp, hard convulsions that had nothing in common with tears, so that he had to force strips of bandage between his teeth to keep the sound from carrying in the darkness.

He had returned to the lodging-house with no explanation for his departure, leaving Egrot and his wife in Bazeilles to think what they would. He could not be their architect right now, he could not be anything at all. Never had he felt such a strong urge to return to the Opéra, to shed his ugly carcass and become a ghost, to dissipate, to forget who he was. Perhaps if the catacombs had still been there, he would have returned that very night, across a hundred miles of open country – but the catacombs had collapsed long ago, and he was left outside, alone with himself.

He bound his chest with a white sheet like a shroud, airtight linen to shut him in, to stop moving, stop thrashing. Sweating like a beast, he was terrified of himself, of the night, of every sound he could not hear. Later, he remembered that he had burst into the study and saw Christine's face there, the anger in the curve of her mouth. He had thrown the sheet away and stood naked before her face, like a blind pallid creature from the filthy depths of the ocean, torn out of its shell – and laughed and laughed...

Daybreak came slowly, wedging light between Erik's swollen eyelids with the tip of a knife. He realised he had slept, or else had abandoned sanity for a time. The bedchamber was in a frightful state. Sketches of the courthouse were strewn all over the floor, some crushed with boot-prints over them, others bulging with splashes of candlewax. All ruined. The results of two weeks of work, one night's despair.

Erik's eyes travelled dully over the destruction, uncaring, until he found what he searched for. The portrait from the study lay on top of a pile of drawings on the floor. The frame and glass were undamaged, but the drawing inside had been turned around, and it was the foreign face of the Empress that looked out at him from within.

Erik realised that for the first night in months he had not dreamed of Christine, but it was at best a hollow triumph. He faced a simple truth now as he had not dared to do before: This was his life.

This was all there had ever been, and no girl's hands would come and rest against the malformed part of his soul, no amount of playing the architect or the refined gentleman would change what he was, what he would always be. This was all.

A bugle sounded from the fortress, and the windows of the bed-chamber rattled with the now-familiar heavy rumble of ammunition wagons, the echo of war. Erik got to his feet and began to gather up the drawings.

When the elderly landlady came in, hours after he had packed up what remained of his sketchbooks and cleaned up the worst of the mess, he was ready with an explanation – wine and cards – but she did not ask. She informed him only that the post had arrived from Paris. Erik accepted the letter dutifully and followed the directives. Monsieur Duchamp warned him of delays on the Paris line, caused by the shortage of trains after they had been requisitioned by the army, and advised him to set out early and return by mail coach or farmer's wagon, or any other means he could find.

Erik therefore paid for his rooms, adding more than enough to cover the damage from the candlewax and crushed charcoal on the floor, and set off for Paris. A pointless energy made him go through the motions of the role he had been playing for so long, and he remained the architect, the gentleman. It was easiest that way, and Erik found a mean sort of comfort in this indifference. Like a piece of driftwood or a corpse being washed downstream, he had no need of decisions. The role carried him back to Paris, and he let it. He had left the portrait behind in Sedan but brought Christine's ring back with him; he could not have said why.

The journey that had been so easy by railroad stretched into two gruelling days by a wagon, coach and finally suburban train, so that when Erik found himself at last back at the entrance to Louise Gandon's store in Montmartre, he summoned enough strength to feel glad. It was not home, he had no home, yet he was glad to see it all the same.

"Well, the prodigal tenant!" she exclaimed, looking him over from head to foot and raising her eyebrows. "And don't you look a sight. Could pass for one of them country folk, with that rumpled suit of yours. There's a letter come for you a few days ago."

She rummaged through a box at the side of the shop counter, and handed Erik a small envelope. "Says here it's from a Madame Giry."

"My thanks," Erik said wearily. He tucked the letter into his folio alongside the crumpled and ruined sketches, and trudged upstairs. He felt too drained even to wonder what Madame Giry could possibly want from him.

Louise knocked on his door later, at what seemed like the middle of the night. Erik lifted his head from the bed where he lay, momentarily disoriented by the sunlight in the window. It was perhaps three o'clock in the afternoon. He wondered vaguely if it was even the same day.

The knocking resumed, gaining a few notches in volume, so that Erik deemed it best to open the door to her and get it over with.

Louise stood on the threshold with a saucepan and spoon, looking annoyed. A delicious smell of onion soup rose from the saucepan, tricking Erik into awareness.

"For God's sake!" She screwed up her bulbous nose at the sight of the room, and Erik's dishevelled appearance. "Eat something, man." She thrust the saucepan and spoon at him. "You'd think you're one of them returning wounded, sneaking in all quiet-like from the front."

Erik glowered at her silently. His eyes felt like sand.

"And cut your hair for pity's sake, before you bring lice into my house."

"Wounded?"

"Border skirmishes, don't you know? We've taken Saarbrücken. Big sodding victory for the Empire, Jean'll tell you." She shrugged dismissively. "You get cleaned up and have a rest before you come downstairs, you hear? I've worries aplenty without a living ghost to scare the shit out of every customer what pokes their head through the door."

Before Erik could figure out how to respond to this mixed offer of insults and food, Louise had turned to go.

"Eat!" she threw over her shoulder, before cluttering down the clean-scrubbed stairs.

Erik slammed the door and shoved the saucepan of soup onto his work-table. He thought to go back to sleep, but his stomach growled in protest. There was nothing for it; he had lost all discipline in the time he had spent above the ground... A day without food had become sufficient to make him nauseous. He would have to cure himself of that, but not now. Now, he decided it made more sense to eat.

A square of white attracted his attention; it was the letter from Madame Giry, fallen out of his folio onto the floor. Erik picked it up without much interest, opening it as he started on the soup.

The spoon froze mid-air in his hand. Slowly, he lowered it, and turned over the card.

Yes, his own writing was still there... He turned the card back, and read again Madame Giry's empty threat: _Kindly recall the difference between a man and a ghost...The gendarmes... A.G._

He upended the envelope, and a second card fell out. It was an invitation, politely phrased and addressed to Monsieur Erik Andersson. An invitation to supper. It seemed he should have amends to make to one Mlle Christine Daaé.

Erik set the card aside and clasped his hands on the table before him. He noted, impartially, the jagged tremor that had begun in his fingertips and spread down to his wrists. It took a long time to bring it under control, but he managed it.

When at last he rose from the table, he had come to a decision. He could be an architect. He could make amends. He could be the gentleman Madame Giry thought to make him; he would play their game and attend their ludicrous idea of a supper. Mirrors, music, portraits, death and Christine: those were in the past.

Erik shuddered, sloughing off his lethargy like the old skin of a serpent, beneath which gleamed the new, iridescent layer of scales.

He replied to the invitation at once.


	18. The Moonlight Sonata

So, here it is: the long-anticipated supper, which I've been longing to write for the last four months! The last chapter's reviews were fascinating to read, guys – thank you for all your thoughtful comments, and please keep them coming! It's a huge help to me to have that feedback. In answer to Phantomy's question re Mme Giry: sometimes facing the mysterious and frightening is the only way to rob it of its power. Erik has a dangerous hold over Christine, and Mme Giry is trying to help her break it.

Trivia for this chapter: the painting referred to here is Manet's _In the Garden _(1870); and the history of _Almost a Fantasy_ is true.

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**Chapter 18 – The Moonlight Sonata**

The invitation said eight o'clock; it was now five minutes past the hour. The front door was still shut.

Christine dragged her eyes away from it and fixed her gaze on the rug at her feet. The geometric patterns stood out clearly in the bright light of the parlour, and Christine tucked her heels to the divan where she sat, mechanically flexing the arches up as though rising on _pointe_. The pose made her feel like a dancer in a garden scene, a soubrette perched daintily on a swing, awaiting her rendezvous. She slammed her feet flat and stood up, annoyed.

"I'm going to help Josette in the kitchen," she announced to a surprised-looking Meg, who stood by the piano, leafing through a perfunctory book: _A Young Lady's Needlepoint Sampler, Vol. III_.

"Meg, you don't embroider."

"And you don't cook." They both glanced to the doors to the dining-room, through which they could hear Madame Giry discussing something in the kitchen with Josette.

"Christine, you can't leave me here alone," Meg pleaded. "What if he comes now?"

"Then I'll hear the door and come back."

"I'm not opening that door!"

Christine looked at Meg's wide eyes and softened her tone. "Are you frightened?"

"Aren't you?"

There was a knock on the door.

Christine's heart thumped, and an icy tide rose all the way to her throat, spreading out as heat over her skin. He was here. It was not the concierge or a neighbour or anybody else, it was him, she knew it. For what seemed like minutes, she and Meg stood motionless, looking at one another.

"No," Christine said. "I'm sick and tired of being frightened."

She took the embroidery book out of Meg's unresisting hands, closed it gently and stowed it on the bookshelf above the piano.

Then she crossed the room to open the door.

He had raised his hand to knock again. For a second, Christine saw nothing except that closed black-gloved hand, frozen near her throat; then her gaze flicked along the arm and shoulder of his jacket, and then to his face.

In the reflected glow from the parlour his features were almost painfully bright, cut in half by the white line of a bandage that was his mask. She saw a shadow on his cheek where he had shaved. He looked at her, and his lips came apart a little, as if to breathe.

_Erik_, her mind prompted.

"Monsieur," she said.

Slowly, he lowered his hand.

There was a crease at the corner of his mouth that Christine had never noticed before, and another where his brows jutted together, pushing at the mask. The bandage seemed to cling to a normal line of cheek and brow, and Christine realised he had padded the linen to give it that shape. In a peculiar way, it seemed almost ordinary.

He stood motionless over her as she watched him, as though he did not mind being seen in the light. For one head-spinning moment, Christine felt there was a mirror between them and she was the reflection. He was real.

He was dressed just like any other city gentleman: polished shoes, immaculately tailored suit, silk top-hat. His own dark-brown hair fell from under the hat on the unbandaged side. It was long enough to give him a bohemian edge – and in that off-handed shrug at fashion Christine saw yet another step he had taken away from the Opéra, and into the world. He had moved on.

He cleared his throat. "Mademoiselle Daaé."

The voice was his, but subdued. He sounded sincere, calm and polite, as though the ruined lives did not matter. An architect.

"Monsieur Andersson." Christine dipped her head in a stiff greeting. "Welcome. It is good of you to come... busy as you are. You honour us."

He gazed back at her mildly.

"The honour is mine." He smiled easily, startling her, and glanced past Christine's shoulder to where Meg and Madame Giry had come up behind her. "Madame Giry – Mademoiselle."

"Good evening, monsieur," came Madame Giry's level voice. "Do come in."

Christine moved aside to admit him into the parlour. She stepped back as he passed, afraid of a touch, even accidental. He brought with him a faint scent of the street, a whiff of summer dust and horses and tobacco that faded almost before Christine could become aware of it. There was nothing in it of the lake, of opera, of murder.

Christine held out her hand to accept his hat and gloves. She felt watched, as though she was on stage.

"Thank you." He put them into her hand without touching her, and turned away. Christine set the things on top of the chest of drawers. A kind of hurt calm was seeping into her. He had a new life.

"Come through to the dining-room, monsieur," Madame Giry said, leading the way. Christine caught Meg's anxious eyes for a moment as they followed, and tried to look brave for her sake. She owed it to Meg and to Madame Giry to get through this evening, to forgive and forget, so that all of them could move on. Just as he had done.

They took their seats around the white-clothed table. Christine felt part of an awkward tableau, a sculpture group in wax like the awful doll in Erik's lair. He was seated across from her and Meg, with Madame Giry was at the head of the table, her back to the little balcony. Josette, happy enough to be paid for an extra evening's work, bustled about in her usual dimple-cheeked efficient way, filling bowls and setting out the wine.

Christine saw Madame Giry give Erik a long, appraising look, as though she too was trying to come to terms with the changes, but she said nothing. Josette left; the soup bowls steamed.

Beside her, Meg fumbled with her napkin and nearly dropped it, stifling her exclamation of dismay. Christine decided she had had enough.

She looked straight at Erik. A guarded flicker crossed his face behind the mask, as though he was not sure what to expect, but Christine only said graciously, as if addressing one of Raoul's friends in his parents' salon: "I hear you are an architect, Monsieur Andersson."

"I am."

Their two voices sounded distorted in the small room. Christine felt her lips twitch nervously, not quite a smile. She pressed on.

"May I ask what you are working on now?"

His reply was equally correct: "A courthouse for the municipality of Sedan, mademoiselle. The office is hoping to complete the project this year – but as you can imagine, the war makes it difficult to avoid delays. I intend to spend some time there myself to ensure the thing is done properly."

"I see." Christine tried to assimilate this. He spoke as freely of his future as if he had no past.

"There are some who say the war is just about over," Madame Giry cut in to steady the fledgling conversation. Christine cast her a grateful glance. "You do not agree?"

"I rather doubt that either side should be satisfied with the siege of one Prussian city, when there are half a million troops still at the border," Erik said.

"Then this victory they have been celebrating will not be enough?"

"Saarbrücken is only a small city, madame; the victory is of little consequence."

There was something so hypocritical, so false in hearing him discuss the war like anyone else that Christine could not stand it. She put down her spoon with a clank.

"You seem well-informed on the subject. _Monsieur_."

The bare half of Erik's face became instantly immobile, completing the mask. When he spoke, his tone was acidly polite. "You mean to say – for a man who three months ago crawled out of a sewer."

Christine heard Meg and Madame Giry stop breathing. The words echoed around the room with the aftershock of a whip.

She held Erik's eyes, refusing to back away. "I would not have phrased it so uncharitably."

"Indeed? And what would you have called it?"

"A larger room in the Opéra than was home to the rest of us. And more comfortably appointed."

She continued looking at him. The pause stretched unbearably, like a note held down on an organ. Then at last, the coldness dissolved away from Erik's face.

"Of course," he said, breaking off a piece of bread, "there _was_ the rising damp. I doubt it was a problem you experienced in the dormitories."

"Perhaps not," Christine conceded, returning to her own plate. "But we had rats."

"Ah, yes. Difficult to catch, but excellent with red wine sauce."

Meg gave a small snort of laughter, next to Christine, and somehow that took the charge from the air. Christine breathed, and then the four of them seemed to come to life.

"You didn't _really_ eat rats?" she ventured, and for a moment Erik's eyes seemed to laugh, more warmly than she could have imagined:

"What makes you believe I stopped?"

"What nonsense," Madame Giry huffed, pretending she was not amused. "The dormitory kitchens cooked plenty to go around."

"_Maman_!" Meg was horrified. "You stole food?"

"Give our guest some credit, Meg. He was more than capable of stealing it himself."

"I see you are determined to reveal all of my secrets," Erik said, with a note of caution in his voice.

Madame Giry fixed him with a serious look. "Yes, Monsieur Andersson. I am determined to do exactly that. Pass the salt, please."

Josette brought in the second course a few minutes later, and looked startled to find them all talking, even the strange gentleman with the bandaged face. They moved from topic to topic, meandering through architecture, the differences between buildings in Paris and the provinces, the disruptions to rail lines. Erik told them a little about the town of Sedan, and the surrounding villages. Christine tried to picture him sketching buildings, walking out on the street with people all around, in the daytime... It was difficult, but it was not impossible. Neither he nor anybody else brought up theatres or music, or darker things, and Christine was content to leave those dangerous subjects well alone.

Madame Giry mentioned their recent visit to an art exhibition, where they had gone as much to see the paintings as to escape the madness of the war-fever in the theatres and streets:

"I confess, I have small appreciation for that sort of modernity." She raised her shoulders in bafflement at the new direction taken by some of the younger artists they had seen: crude brushwork and sketchy lines, awkward poses and ripples of unexpected colour. "It seems little more than the skill of putting an impression to canvas, without bothering with the details. It is no more a painting than the recounting of a ballerina's movements by an enthusiastic theatre patron, complete with hand gestures, is a ballet."

Here Madame Giry waved a hand melodramatically, as a speaker might do in imitating a dance number. Christine and Meg laughed, and when Christine stole a glance at Erik, she saw that he, too, looked amused. The effect was strangely pleasing.

"It might not be like regular art, but I liked Manet's garden," Meg said, helping herself to more of the chicken Marengo. "The morning light on the path – it looked so real."

"It must be nice to be able to do that," agreed Christine. "To take what you see and put it onto a canvas, just that moment."

"It's what they try to do, I think. Capture the light."

"A dangerous pastime," said Madame Giry, "trying to capture that which ought to be free."

Before the conversation could take an awkward turn, Josette brought in coffee and sweets. Christine smiled to herself. She had never imagined Erik liked marzipan.

When the meal was done they returned to the parlour, somehow managing to arrange themselves around the few available seats. Christine shared the worn divan with Madame Giry, and Meg took one of the armchairs. Erik sat down in the other chair, leaning one elbow against an armrest in a way that made him seem almost relaxed. Christine saw his eyes linger a moment on the piano in the opposite corner of the room.

"Will you play something for us?"

The words escaped before she could have time to stop them.

It had seemed so natural to ask it in that moment of peace, as if they were gathered for a genuine social occasion, as if this was normal and real. Christine sensed an uncomfortable silence opening out around her, gaping wider and wider as Erik sat up, his back turning rigid. She could see his eyes, but his expression told her nothing.

"What would you have me play?" he asked quietly.

Christine could think of no polite way to take back her words. She felt Madame Giry's hand come to rest on her shoulder, keeping her calm.

"Perhaps just a short piece," Madame Giry said evenly. "I daresay we should have a good fifteen minutes of music before the neighbours come to add the vocals. If you would do us the honour, monsieur."

Erik looked back to the instrument.

There was the strangest mixture of yearning and contempt in that look, as though he wished he could destroy it. Then without another word, he rose and went over to it. He sat down at the bench and opened the lid, his foot finding the pedal.

He did not even look at the keys. It was as if the piano did not exist. He simply lowered his hands to touch it, hesitating only a moment at the contact – and there was music.

The first notes were almost inaudible.

Christine caught the sound on the very edge of silence: simple, dark, disturbing. Three rising notes, repeated again and again. Trying to rise up, going nowhere. A moment's change, then nothing. Three rising notes, the bars of a cage and a shadow on the wall behind them, lurking.

Following an instinct she could not understand, Christine rose and went to stand beside the piano. The music changed, and did not change. Another theme cut across it as a shaft of light from a window of a cell cuts through the gloom, and the three rising notes were subdued by it. Subdued, but not silenced. The shadow remained. The shaft of light trembled, hovering as a reflection over black water: it spoke of longing, of the fear of the night. It trembled, pleading with a desperate breaking voice, pleading love...

He shut the lid.

Christine jumped, as if he had slammed it on her hands, and yet he had closed it very quietly, simply stopped in the middle of a bar. Three rising notes, silenced.

Erik sat, looking down at the polished lid.

"Do you know the music?"

Christine heard the question, but did not see him speak the words. He did not look at her and she felt invisible, aloof as a ghost.

"Yes," she said. Her own voice shocked her. It was too clear, too strong. "Beethoven. The Moonlight Sonata."

"That is the name given it by others. Beethoven called it 'Almost a Fantasy'. Do you know why?"

Erik raised his face to her and Christine saw a dark stain in the white fabric of his mask, beneath his eye.

She shook her head slowly. "Perhaps because... It's dedicated to a woman he loved. Contessa Giulietta Guicciardi."

"Is it?" he asked indifferently, even though Christine thought he knew the dedication as well as she did. "But, you see... On the margin of the manuscript, he wrote _this_."

Erik lifted the piano lid part of the way, and with one hand played a phrase.

"Mozart?" Christine wondered, and then recalled the fragment. "Don Giovanni."

"You remember the scene," he said, not as a question.

"It is after he – after Don Juan kills the Commander."

"Murders him," Erik corrected her. "You must always say what you mean, and what you mean is murder. A beautiful melody, is it not? 'Almost a Fantasy'."

He shut the lid, and stood up. Christine did not know what to say; the room had retreated somewhere, into the distance.

"I don't understand what you mean."

There was something ghastly in the smile Erik gave her: it was frightening not because it was mad, but because it was precisely the opposite. He was sane. He was completely sane, and he stood before her with the music still filling the space between them, and Christine did not know if it was a hymn to love – or to gruesome, unrepentant murder.

"I'm sorry," Erik said. "I came here because I wanted to tell you that, mademoiselle. I am really very sorry."

Christine stared at him, appalled. In her mind, the insidious funeral dirge played three rising notes, going nowhere, repeated.

"Could you forgive me?" the architect asked. "One day?"

"I... suppose so. Perhaps one day."

"Then I thank you for your generosity, and for a delightful evening."

He turned around, and the rest of the room came into being again.

Christine realised Madame Giry and Meg were standing in the middle of the parlour, watching them in uncertain silence. They had not heard their words, and Christine felt a stab of anger that nobody had intervened, that they had allowed these few brief moments to happen. It seemed an eternity since the music finished, and still she could hear it now.

Erik put on his hat, took his gloves, and gave a small, courteous nod to each of them in turn.

"Good night, Madame Giry. Mademoiselle Giry."

Madame Giry shook herself slightly, as though dispelling a dream. Then she went to see him to the door. "Good night, monsieur."

The door shut. Christine heard his footsteps on the stairs. Three notes, repeated.

"Well, that wasn't so bad." Meg bounced on her toes, stretching her cramped legs. "Was it? Christine?"

Christine darted past her to the window. She caught only his silhouette crossing the pavement, a gentleman in a top-hat striding over the patch of light from the streetlamp. He disappeared.

She let the curtains fall shut. An entire evening, she thought. An entire evening with him, and he never once called her Christine. He was sane, he knew exactly what he had done... But she did not know what he meant by his music. Forgiveness, he said. For being a murderer? For deceiving her for so long? For love?

"What did he say to you, Christine?" Madame Giry asked gently.

"He asked for my forgiveness."

Madame Giry looked relieved. Christine gave her a crooked smile, the best she could manage. It dawned on her that, just as Madame Giry had hoped, there was no longer a ghost in her mind. He had disappeared along with the angel, the madman, the murderer... So many masks, and there was nothing left. He had turned into an architect, he was no longer here. There was no ghost with her.

And without him – who was she?

It was not until later that night that Christine remembered her ring. She wondered what had become of it.


	19. All the Little Lies

Thank you, guys, for the reviews for the previous chapter – I was thrilled by how many different takes there were on the questions it poses!

Emotionally, this chapter continues from the previous, so it's probably best to read the end of Chapter 18 before you start this one.

Trivia for this chapter: Carlotta's cameo here is based on a real incident involving Marie Sass, a prima donna at the Opéra.

* * *

**Chapter 19 – All the Little Lies**

Erik raised the ring to the sunlight from the office window and tilted it, scattering fractured rainbows across the sketch of the courthouse façade. The drawing of a stained-glass window on the table before him blazed bright red. Such a deceptive colour. Christine had worn a red dress to supper: a muted, smiling red, with a high collar buttoned tight around her white neck. So respectable. Such a perfect match to his top-hat and suit. Only the red lace trim at her throat had foamed like spit around the mouth of a dying creature.

The page swam with colours, and for a moment Erik was again in that tiny yellow-lit room: inside it, not outside in the night. How bold of them, he thought viciously – to invite him in! As if they had nothing to fear from him. As if it was enough to have ground him into the shape of a gentleman and now their job was done. They just expected him to go on as if he had a soul like all men, as if he could simply shrug off his entire life like a bad dream. Christine would have him believe that his lair had been nothing but a large room at the Opéra. Perhaps he should also believe that his murders were accidents with a piece of string, and that the Angel of Music had been a charming little game they had played together!

Christine had laughed, and talked, and finally asked him to play something, as if she could no longer see through his mask, or did not want to. In place of the wounded girl who had plagued his dreams he found a respectable young woman. Christine had moved on. She had discarded her singing and even her precious Vicomte, as though the boy, too, was a figment of her past and she had no more need of protection. She could sit back in perfect comfort, a mere table-width away – and talk about art. She could listen to the music pouring from his bloodstained hands and pretend that she did not know what he meant. And Madame Giry could watch all this with benevolent approval.

They had abandoned him. Abandoned the gentleman more completely than they had ever abandoned the monster.

Erik rolled the ring between his charcoal-stained fingers, smearing soot over the crystal he had kept pristine for so long, and remembered the rain outside the burnt-out Opéra. He had wanted Christine to be happy... It was so easy to worship an angel. But when he thought of Christine standing over the piano in her polite, dull-red dress – he wanted to rip the choking collar from her throat and terrify her. Anything to break this second, final abandonment. Anything to have her hate him, fear him, tear the mask off his face – _anything_ was better than this!

He threw the ring into a desk drawer, out of sight, and slammed it shut – just in time to avoid the eyes of the young man who now approached him, weaving between draughting tables.

Vincent Fiaux took in at a glance Erik's ashen face and bloodshot eyes, and leaned back against a chair with a cheerful, knowing grin.

"Rough night?"

"You could say that." Erik gave a sour smirk, more for himself than for Fiaux.

"Absinthe? Theatre? Girls?"

"Nothing so amusing, I assure you. A number of my sketches were damaged in transit. Restoring them took longer than I had anticipated."

Fiaux laughed as if Erik had made a fine jest. "Girls," he diagnosed, adding in a tone of mingled envy and admiration: "The Montmartre ladies must have welcomed you back in style, Andersson! You look like you haven't slept in days."

"I suppose one might call it a welcome," Erik said acerbically. "It certainly kept me from sleep."

"Must've been some beauty."

Erik hesitated only a moment. "Nothing special. A dancer."

He knew a moment's keen satisfaction – and then a sudden, ugly flush of anger. He scowled at the young man. "Have you anything of importance to say, Fiaux, or is it your intention to keep me from my work all morning?"

Fiaux shrugged, unoffended. "Duchamp wants to see you when you have a minute. I thought I'd give you fair warning – he'll likely be looking to dump my projects on you."

"You have resigned?" Erik frowned in surprise.

"In a sense. I'm only here on special leave, two days – it's back to Châlons for me tomorrow."

Before Erik could react to this news, Fiaux had jumped off the chair back and strolled back to his desk, hands thrust into his trouser pockets. Erik stared after him. He wondered what possible use this scrawny boy could be to any army. He shrugged the problem away, wiped the charcoal from his hands and went to Monsieur Duchamp's office.

"Ah! Come in, Andersson, come in." Monsieur Duchamp half-stood at his table to grip Erik's hand in a solid handshake. "Take a seat."

Erik drew a chair up to the table. "I understand Fiaux has been called up to the army."

"Yes. A real misfortune, that." Monsieur Duchamp tugged at his moustache miserably. "I tried to arrange a replacement of course, the office would have paid – but they wouldn't hear of it, not for an engineer with a military college degree. Politics, always politics! I do hope you have no inclination to join the _Garde Mobile _or some such nonsense yourself?"

"None whatsoever," Erik assured him.

"Excellent, excellent. In that case, I trust we can rely on you to continue the Sedan project? Pending the mayor's approval, naturally."

"Certainly. I'm keen to begin construction as soon as the funds have been approved. I trust I shall not be kept waiting long."

Monsieur Duchamp gave a small grunt of approval. "This is what I like about you, Andersson: your single-mindedness! A most commendable trait in this profession. I appreciate that you chafe at the delay, but do understand that we are on shaky ground here. I foresee no trouble with the approval, but we may well be forced to wait for funds and labour." He sighed in frustration. "It is, I fear, a difficult time to be in business."

"The process would be speeded up considerably were I to return to Sedan and deal with the mayor's office in person."

Monsieur Duchamp gave him a look that was shrewd but not unfriendly. "You liked the place that much, did you?"

Erik leaned back in his chair indifferently. "It is a pleasant enough town, monsieur, but my concern is solely for my project."

"I don't doubt it, Andersson, but for the moment we have need of your skills here in Paris. Fiaux's departure has left us with a number of impatient clients. Naturally I sympathise with your concerns about Sedan, and you may have my word that the moment we have the papers you will be back on it. But in the meantime, I would ask you to cast an eye over Fiaux's current files and assess the outstanding commissions. You may find several of them to your liking."

"May I," Erik said, barely concealing his derision at being so presumptuously ordered about. "I have no interest, monsieur, in working on other men's hand-me-downs."

Monsieur Duchamp considered him for a second as one might consider a flawed sketch, apparently unperturbed by the coldness of his response. Then he turned around, indicating Oppenord's exquisite Opéra of Mount Olympus on the wall behind him.

"You admire this drawing, I believe?"

"Some aspects of it. Perhaps."

"Its author designed this building for his patron, and was paid a significant sum for the work." Monsieur Duchamp turned back with a patient, quizzical expression that somehow made Erik both angrier and more uncertain.

"What do you imply?"

"Only that there is no shame in directing your talents to the benefit of another party beside yourself, my boy. We are artists, but we have also a duty to the client, and to our fellows here at the office. Allow me to be frank: I ask you to take on these projects because you are, quite simply, the best man for the job. It would be a pity if you turned them down because you perceived it to be an order. A great pity."

Erik felt the prickle of sweat beneath his bandage. The words pierced right to the cause of his anger, in unexpected understanding. He had been caught off-guard, still raw from the sleepless night and the evening before it. Monsieur Duchamp watched him expectantly, waiting for his decision as if it mattered to him. As if the fate of Erik Andersson mattered to him.

"Take the files, Andersson. I need your help."

The dry lump in his throat took Erik by surprise. "Very well," he said harshly. "I agree."

"Well, well," Monsieur Duchamp rumbled, turning gruff. "Off with you, then. There is work to be done."

Erik went. He felt he had lost a duel, but somehow, he did not seem to mind it. He returned to the office and sought out Fiaux to retrieve the files. The young man tried a few good-natured jokes about Erik's apparent inability to say 'no' – whether to his boss or to the ladies of Montmartre – but gave it up in the face of Erik's equanimity, and wished him luck.

Erik took the files back to his table, leafing through the unfinished plans and papers outlining the work to be done, and sat down to examine them thoroughly. He had decided on two projects that appealed to him – a private residence in the second _arrondissement_ and some restoration work on the Ménilmontant church – and was considering the wisdom of taking on a third, when he looked at what he was doing, and stopped.

_You are an architect_, Christine had said at supper. _I am_, he had thrown back at her, thinking it a lie. But he saw now that it was true. This mask had grown to his face, to his very skin.

He reached for the drawer where he had thrown Christine's ring, but did not dare open it. This was his life now. This was all there would ever be.

And he wished with a crushing, desperate yearning for the feel of Christine's hands on the scar that was his real face. He slid his fingers under the edge of the bandage and felt the familiar deformity, the ruined skin slick and damp and hot from the layers of linen. He had a violent urge to be free of it, to take it off. The Moonlight Sonata weaved again through his mind and he did not know whether it was shame he felt, or hatred, or a haunting, unbearable love.

He wanted to be free. He wanted to be free.

He did not. He wanted Christine. But all he had left was freedom.

Erik forced himself to turn the page and return to work.

o o o

Christine lowered the latch on the washroom door and turned to the mirror. It was just a little round mirror above the sink, with stains of silver peppering its edges and absolutely nothing behind it except solid, tiled wall. She reminded herself that she was home. That nobody was watching. That nobody would care. That there was nothing to fear.

The girl in the mirror opened her dry, cracked lips, as she had all the previous times. She stared back at Christine, this paper-thin girl, and waited.

And waited.

Christine felt her lungs take in air, the way a sinking ship takes in water, and knew she would not sing. She tensed herself anyway, doing everything exactly as she knew was right, preparing to produce the opening notes of the _Marseillaise_ even as her mind splintered in two and one part laughed at the other's pathetic exertions.

_I can't_, she thought at the mute creature staring back at her from the mirror. I can't, I can't, I can't.

In her head, the infernal Moonlight Sonata started again. Three rising notes, suffocating the _Marseillaise_. Every night since the supper she had gone to sleep hearing it and woke up with the melody still there, burning with Erik's unanswered question. The cruelty of it was that she caught herself forgetting the music sometimes, and then she would hum it quietly, until it returned. She had thought it a curse to feel him always with her, to fear that he could find her again – but knowing that he would not, that he had moved on, was a curse worse than the old one.

And she still could not sing.

"I can," Christine told herself firmly. Meg was right. She had to audition, they needed the money and this was no time to play games. It would be nothing like her aria in _Hannibal_ and certainly nothing like _Don Juan Triumphant_. It was just a gala, a stupid concert with an easy song that she could have sung in her sleep two years ago.

And therein was the problem, Christine thought. One way or another, she had always sung in her sleep: in the halfway world of illusion, supported by the spirit of her father, guarded by the invisible angel he had sent. Now she was wide awake, every illusion turned to grisly reality, with nobody to support the notes or coax her voice from within her. It had happened before, after her father was gone – yet Christine knew this time it was worse.

This time, no angel's voice would whisper to her in the chapel as she came to light her candle. There would be no angel's song for her to hear. She recalled the day when she had first heard the strange sound in the chapel – a voice that burned through walls right to her skin, bitter and hot like tears. _An angel weeps_, she had thought then. A child she had been, an innocent little fool.

"Why are you crying, Angel?"

And the voice had stopped. He had heard her.

"Do not cry. My father said he is gone to Heaven, and that it is a good place. You come from Heaven, don't you?"

"No," he had said. Petulant, like a child. "From Hell."

"That isn't true," she objected, "for then you would be a demon, and demons don't cry."

"Perhaps I am a demon."

"You aren't a very clever angel," she said patiently. "I know you were crying. I heard you. Angels cry, and demons don't. Why do you cry, Angel?"

"I do not cry."

"I heard you," she insisted. "You are sad, and so you cry. It is all right to cry. My father said so, and Madame Giry says so."

"That is very clever of them."

"Well," she confided, "my father does not say it anymore, or if he does I cannot hear, because he is in Heaven. But he told me that when he went to Heaven he would send to me the Angel of Music. That is you, isn't it?"

Silence. But an alive kind of silence.

"Why are you sad, Angel of Music?"

"I am not."

That had been the moment, Christine thought. _I am not._ Not sad? Or – not the Angel of Music? A cruel thing, to give a child such a choice: to believe or to disbelieve. To permit herself to be deceived or to back away and run, run like all the others.

Had she known even then that by her words she would create the Angel of Music? She had. She had understood all along, a tiny spark of knowledge in the back of her mind. Yet her father had promised to send her the Angel of Music, and so there had to be an Angel. And so there was.

"If you are not sad, Angel, then why do you cry?"

A long time passed, until she thought he was gone. Then the voice returned, more resonant, lighter – an angel's voice in truth:

"Because _you_ are sad, child, and you do not."

"I will sing for you, so you don't cry anymore. Will you sing with me, Angel?"

And so they had sung then, and later, and later. He listened, and perhaps because she knew he listened, she had found the right song. The song that had shrivelled away while her father lay dying came alight again inside her, like a guttering candle cupped between two hands, protected from the wind. Her angel told her to sing, and so she sang.

There had only ever been a voice, no body, no face, no fear except that old, sneaking spark of knowledge in the back of her mind that it was all a lie, ticking away like a clock set to strike at midnight. And she had known, God help her, she had known all along that midnight would come, the clock would strike, and the illusion would end. It had frightened her, so much that she did not want to think of it ending, would not think of it. It frightened her and it fascinated her, and it sent her straight to the mirror on that awful, wonderful night, to the place where illusions ended. The same place where, a few months or many centuries ago, she had taken a man's scarred face in her hands, and opened him to her.

She had created the Angel of Music. It was her own innocent, stupid fault. She had longed so deeply for the angel that she had taken a piece of herself, and out of it had fashioned his wings. Now she had no angel, and the man who had been him was gone. She had only herself – and it was not enough.

"Sing, you stupid girl," she snapped at the washroom mirror, and the reflection threw back her grimace, mindlessly.

"Christine!" Meg was hammering on the door. "Are you ready? We'll be late for rehearsal!"

Hastily, Christine turned the tap and splashed cold water on her face. "I'll be right there!" She could not do it. She could not face a theatre of people and be mute.

She unlatched the door and came out of the washroom.

Meg was standing there with both their ballet satchels at the ready, looking anxious. "We'll miss the omnibus."

"I... won't be able to audition." Christine hated saying those words; it was humiliating. "I can't do it."

"Never mind," Meg said as if it meant nothing. "Here, take your things, and hurry!" When Christine still hesitated, Meg gave her an impatient look uncannily like Madame Giry's: "Look, if you get there and don't want to do it, I'll just tell them you have laryngitis! Now _come on_!"

Christine gaped for a moment – then laughed, momentarily feeling better. She grabbed the bag with her gear and rushed out with Meg, leaping the stairs two at a time so that both of them all but tumbled past the concierge's lodge and out onto the street.

"Run run run!" Meg chanted, while they sprinted across the footpath and, surprisingly enough, managed to catch the omnibus after all.

They plopped themselves onto one of the two facing benches, ignoring the disapproving frowns turned on them by the sedate ladies in the remaining seats. The day was hot and the carriage was sweltering; Christine vainly wished that she and Meg could go upstairs to the open deck, but women were banned from riding there for fear of falls. She tried not to think about the audition.

The omnibus was still less than halfway to the _Variétés_ when there was a loud commotion outside. Christine and Meg made for the window, squeezing themselves between the other passengers, as everyone attempted to see what was going on.

"Where are they all running?" asked the woman next to Christine, and they heard a man on the top deck shout down to the street:

"What's going on?"

"A telegram!" someone shouted back, jubilantly. "There's a telegram outside the Bourse!"

Christine saw new crowds join the existing ones, blocking off the traffic on the boulevard as their omnibus ground to a halt. Everyone seemed to be running in the same direction, towards the Stock Exchange where news of the war were always posted.

"Twenty-five thousand Prussians taken prisoner, and the Crown Prince among them!" someone hollered the contents of the telegram. Men cheered, throwing their hats high in the air.

"Victory! Victory! It's the end of the war! _Vive la France!_"

Christine sank down onto the bench. Her heart was thundering in her head, and she realised, shamefully, that her immense relief at this news was entirely selfish. There was no need for the audition now. She wouldn't have to try to sing after all.

As if her thought had been the cue for some unseen orchestra, the riotous crowd outside seemed to have fallen quiet.

"Christine, look!" Meg tugged at her elbow frantically, making space at the window. "It's Carlotta!"

And it was. Her open carriage had been stopped, marooned in the crowd some distance from their omnibus, and as Christine watched, Carlotta climbed up to stand high over the crowd, with the air of one who had done this many times before.

"What is she..." Christine began, and then heard the all-too-familiar strains of the song she had not been able to sing:

"_Aux armes, citoyens!  
Formez vos bataillons!  
Marchons, marchons!  
Qu'un sang impur  
Abreuve nos sillons!"_

_To arms, oh citizens!  
Form up in battle ranks!  
March on, march on!  
And drench our fields  
With their tainted blood!_

Carlotta's ear-splitting soprano was not nearly so shrill when heard above the noise of the crowd, and the chorus blazed clearly through the summer air. Christine listened to this stirring call to death and blood and violence, and felt profoundly glad that the madness of the war was over.

The world would return to normal now, and she, too, would find some peace.

Yet when she and Meg finally made it to the _Variétés_, there was no peace there. People were whispering that the news was false and the telegram announcing the victory had been nothing but a rumour. Helena Weiss said that she had gone to the Bourse herself and had seen nothing posted there, a blank wall, but others shouted her down, swearing that they had seen it themselves and calling her a Prussian.

Helena turned out to be right. The next morning, Christine came outside with Meg to find an ominous silence in the street. The celebrations were over. Instead, the news-stands were surrounded by groups of grey-faced people, who did not speak to one another but only stood staring at the headlines, as if a terrible spell of illusion had shattered and they found themselves unable to comprehend the truth.

The army had been defeated at Wissembourg, at Spicheren, at Fröschwiller. The Prussians had entered France. The more optimistic papers suggested that this had been the plan all along, that General MacMahon intended to lead his troops north to the Belgian border, to catch the invading Prussians in a trap...

_The Belgian border_, Christine read, and felt a hard jolt. Erik had worked in a town on the Belgian border.

And he had been planning to go back.


	20. Invasion

Thank you for the reviews, guys! This chapter is a tad on the short side, sorry, but it's the most logical place to break it and I'll try to hurry along with the next update.

A quick response to Ianthe's question about why Mme Giry acts as she does at the supper: I think you have to remember that she doesn't know everything we know. ;-) The supper is as much a gamble to her as it is to everyone else; she doesn't know how Erik feels about his past.

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**Chapter 20 – Invasion**

"This way, _citoyens_, and mind you close the door." Louise ushered the last of the stragglers through the back door and into the store-room, where a space had been cleared for an emergency meeting. Those already present shuffled aside to make room for the newcomers, moving the crates and soap-boxes that served as rows of makeshift chairs.

Erik remained where he was, leaning casually against the stack of boxes lining the back wall. Every one of the newcomers walked right past him unaware, though some were near enough to all but tread on his shoes. Erik felt a rush of nostalgia: it had been too long since he had been a ghost. He had forgotten how enjoyable it could be. Neither Jean nor Louise had mentioned this meeting to him, let alone invited him along: evidently they did not deem him trustworthy enough to be informed of the things taking place right under his nose. It was a pity really, Erik reflected, because had they invited him, he would certainly have refused to attend, having little interest in their griping against the Emperor – but they had not asked him, and consequently had irritated him into deciding to stay. At any rate, it was proving more entertaining than wandering the dead streets of inner Paris, where people asked one another over and over again: "Is it true about the invasion? Are we done for?"

There was not a hint of that sheep-like despair here. The day was Sunday and so the shop was shut, but in the dimly lit store-room the atmosphere was one of concern and brisk action, as if the milliners and post-clerks gathered here thought themselves a Parliament.

The door to the main area of the shop was opened briefly, admitting Jean. His unruly red hair had been smoothed down and for once there were no ink stains on his hands.

"Quiet as the tomb out there," he said, coming over to stand at the front of the room. He clipped on his spectacles to survey those who were present, his nearsighted eyes skimming over Erik, unseeing. There were perhaps ten or twelve men gathered, most with the look of local shopkeepers or minor clerks, and a couple of women in patched frocks and kerchiefs. Some of them Erik recognised as neighbours, others he had never seen before.

"Good to see you all here, and at such short notice," Jean began. "I'll get straight to it, then. The Montmartre committee is meeting tonight, and we need to be firm on where we stand on the situation. As of this morning, the invasion of Alsace-Lorraine is an open secret. What all of us have been saying for weeks is finally out in the open: the army is a mess, the commanders are worse than useless – the Prussians are on the move, and I believe we're all of a mind that the Empire cannot last much longer."

This produced a chorus of agreement.

"Unfortunately," Jean continued over them, "for the moment Ollivier's holding firm in the Assembly. Worse still, we are now officially under martial law."

"They can't shut down the committees!" protested one of the women, while others insisted that Paris would not stand for this, and that the time was ripe for the Emperor to abdicate and give way to the will of the people. Others insisted that the people must take what is rightfully theirs, Emperor or not.

"Order!" Jean snapped, and the meeting subsided. "Have a care, _citoyens_, before the police come sniffing round. What is clear is that we need to move, and move quickly. The Jacobins in Ménilmontant are talking of removing Ollivier."

"They're always on about removing someone or other," grumbled a man in the front row. "Bloody useless, I say. The Assembly's a beast with two hundred heads – and Ollivier's not the worst of the lot. The bastard sold out the Republican cause, but we touch him and next it'll be de Gramont or some other moron at the reins."

"I agree," Jean said. "It's not the Assembly we want but the Tuileries. The Emperor's a sick man and all the way in Châlons besides; he wouldn't dare show his nose in Paris, not now. But if the Empress abdicates we've got ourselves a republic right there, simple as that."

"Pah," sneered a woman in a red kerchief, "You think they'll just let us walk into the palace? An audience with the Empress, what? They've the right notion in La Vilette; the place has been rumbling since before dawn and mind if the shit doesn't start flying by sundown! We should join with them, is what we should do."

"Aye, and soon!" Louise agreed, from her seat near the door. "There's a damn lot of us, and they know it down in Paris. You think they're not afraid, in their pretty cafés, sipping coffee while our boys are being bled alive by the Prussians? You don't see them sending their own fat sons to the war, do you now? No, they got money to buy a replacement should their kid get drafted; a thousand francs is no skin off their backs! It's our boys out there fighting their damned war, _citoyens_, and while Ollivier's lot dilly-dally with politicking, there's more of ours dying. So we join with La Vilette now, others will see the way of it, never fear – we'll have Ménilmontant at least, and the rest will follow."

"A revolution, now?" Jean shook his head. "Impossible; it'd be chaos. We need a plan—"

This caused another uproar; people spoke over each other with apparent disregard for the prospect of the police bursting in. Jean was calling, "Order! Order!" without much success, while Louise and the others bickered over the possibility of a revolution. Some were of the opinion that the police would crush them before they got a chance; others thought that they could sweep through Paris if they got the numbers, while Jean as a few others counselled caution in replacing the government until a plan could be formed for a new one.

One voice stood out over the general din; the woman in the red kerchief, pink in the face, continued to insist that rising up together with the workers was the only solution.

"If a massacre's what they need to listen to us, then we'll give them one!"

Quick as thought, Erik stepped away from the pile of boxes behind him, releasing his hold on the one he had deliberately loosened before the meeting had started. The structure wobbled and pitched, but by the time it started toppling, Erik was already at the top of the stair landing. From there, he watched boxes thumping and thudding to the floor one after another, raising clouds of thick, choking dust. Candles rolled and cakes of soap went whizzing over the floorboards while people yelped and cursed, leaping out of the way and sneezing in all the dust.

Erik retreated upstairs to his room and locked the door. He could still hear their muffled curses as they tried to clean up and keep quiet about it, blaming one another for getting too rowdy – yet this small revenge for Jean and Louise's distrust did not please him as it should have. The anger did not go away but only built, seething.

He yanked a clean sheet of paper from the stack on his shelf and clipped it to the drawing board. Gritting his teeth, he threw pencil lines like darts against white paper, drawing a floor-plan but picturing before him the faces of Jean, Louise, Madame Giry: all those who had abandoned him. _Christine_.

He slashed a line through the sketch, took a fresh sheet of paper, and started again.

o o o

The cab stopped several blocks before the Moulin de la Galette.

"That's as far as I take you for a franc, mam'zelle," the cab driver said, dismounting. He opened the door for Christine to get out. "You want to go further, I'm charging triple. For the risk, see. It's not safe around here with the reds buzzing about the war. I show them a nice clean cab like this when they're all fired up – it's a red rag to a bull." He half-grinned at his own pun. "And if you want my advice, you'd be staying home too. Not a time to be wandering about after dark."

Christine gathered up her skirts and stepped down onto the pavement.

"Thank you," she said, smiling to hide her annoyance. No cab driver had ever dared lecture her when she had travelled with Raoul, let alone set her down half a mile from where she had asked to go, and demanded triple payment to go further. Still, she had no more money to pay him and there was no choice; she did not come this far to turn back. She would walk.

"Watch the _gendarmes_ don't pick you up, mam'zelle. Martial law, see – you'll be in jail before you know it if you so much as breathe wrong, never mind that you're but a little thing."

"Is it this way then, monsieur?" Christine asked, ignoring his unsought-for admonitions.

The cab driver scratched his clean-shaven chin thoughtfully. "Walk up this street, and then turn left at the _cabaret_ on the corner and straight on until you come to the square. It's a little street on your right."

Christine thanked him and set off. It was not yet completely dark, but she had never been in this part of Montmartre before, having previously come only as far as the cemetery, and so she tried to pay attention to the landmarks in case she got lost and was forced to retrace her steps. The _cabaret_ on the corner was the only well-lit building she could see; it was a small, crowded bar where men sat drinking. Most of the windows in the smaller houses that lined the narrow, winding street were curtained, although every now and again a patch of yellow light from an opened window coloured the cobbles. There was no sign of the 'reds' or the _gendarmes_. Nevertheless, Christine quickened her pace, keeping to the shadows. She had to admit it was unnerving to be out alone in this unfamiliar place, and the cab-driver's insistence that it was dangerous had made her jumpy.

A few catcalls followed her as she passed the _cabaret_. Christine winced at the flush of fear and kept walking, head down. Without a doubt it would have been safer to stay home this evening: to sit in the parlour and play draughts and talk with Meg while they waited for Madame Giry to return from her night job. And all the while she would have been gnawing her lips bloody, wondering whether Erik had indeed left Paris again, whether he was – in danger. A preposterous thought. The Phantom, in danger... Yet Christine could not put it from her mind.

It frightened her, this gaping uncertainty left behind from the supper with Monsieur Erik Andersson. She kept going over small, meaningless fragments of the evening as if she could find the answers there: in a memory of Erik's hand closed over his fork, or his elbow pressed into the armrest of the chair, or the sharp delineation of bandage and skin when he had raised his face to her from the piano, silencing the music... Who was he? Where was he? She dreamed of the night when she had seen him on the balcony, of his hands and his mouth and of reaching for him in the dark, of danger and blood. Christine wondered what he was doing. What he had meant by his music. Whether he even thought of her in his perfect new life, or regretted anything at all.

It was unthinkable that he could have vanished from Paris and taken all the answers with him; unthinkable that he could be hurt or die by some stray bullet and leave her with this uncertainty for the rest of her days. The faultlessly polite thank-you note he had sent after the supper had bothered her endlessly with the possibility of answers, until Christine could no longer resist. She needed to know. The address she had copied from the envelope could prove to be false, but then his entire story about architecture and the Belgian border could itself be a lie, and Christine had never felt so felt fed up with all the tangles and half-truths. If it was a lie, at least she would know that much.

She turned right at the deserted square, where a few ragged, empty-faced beggars huddled beside an abandoned market cart, and started up the street. It had to be the right place, Christine mused, looking around. The houses were old but not run-down; most had shops on the ground floor and three or four levels of apartments above that. The shops were all closed, as it was a Sunday and late besides, but many of the apartment windows were bright, and Christine felt a moment's elation when she saw she was at the right number.

It was here; 15, rue Fontenelle.

The elation froze in her throat. Christine stood looking up at the building. It was no different from the others around it, but it seemed bigger, filling her view. The storefront was barred and the window above it was black and quiet. On the third floor, there was a light.

As if playing a game with herself, Christine thought: it is the second floor, the dark one. He is not there. He has gone from Paris.

Or it is the wrong building, and he never lived here at all.

Or the third floor. And he is home.

A noise on the other side of the street startled her; Christine was halfway up the alley beside the store before she realised it was just a cat. She stopped against the wall, catching her breath, trying not to panic. The alley opened into a tiny courtyard behind the house. The back door would be there, and perhaps a sign listing the names of the occupants of each floor, like in some of the older buildings that had no concierge. Then, Christine decided, she would have her answer.

She went into the courtyard.

There was a shed of some sort built up against the brick wall. Christine walked around it, and found the back door. She could see no list of names or any other sign: just a blank door before her, wide enough for crates and other deliveries for the store. Christine looked at it, wondering what to do. She put her hand out, to touch the wood.

The door was open.

o o o

Erik heard the back door creaking. At first he thought it was Louise and Jean returning from their meeting, but the sound was oddly hesitant. Erik put down his pencil. The door continued to open, and somebody stepped inside, but he could hear neither the clomping of Louise's boots on the stairs nor the mutter of their usual conversation. Whoever it was was trying to be very quiet.

The door from the back room to the shop itself was locked; Erik listened for the scrape of a lockpick, but there was nothing. No sounds of boxes being moved, either. Not a thief then. Either a particularly stupid _gendarme_ who believed that Jean and Louise kept their papers in the store-room... Or the _gendarmes_ were after somebody else.

Erik looked down at the floor-plan he had drawn, then at his pencils, compasses, a slide rule, pages of calculations... It was not much of a life, but it belonged to him now. He had nothing else, but this – this was his. They could not have it.

He reached up and put out the lamp. Easing the door open soundlessly, he stepped out into the stairwell.

Three steps down, he put one hand over the banister, and jumped.


	21. Ghosts Dissolve By Daylight

Okay, guys. Because this site doesn't allow chapter-by-chapter warnings and I don't want to risk losing my work, **I am now changing the rating to 'M'.** The story is not changing; it will remain what it has always been, and if you were comfortable with it up to this point you will likely continue to remain so. Still, this chapter does contain sexual content (though by no means smut) and it's probable that in later chapters there may be violence, given that I'm dealing with a war and all. If anyone would like a "censored" version of the chapter, drop me an email at the address in my profile, and I'll send you a copy.

For everyone else – I'm sorry about the cliff-hanger in the previous chapter. Hope the early update makes up for it!

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Chapter 21 – Ghosts Dissolve By Daylight

Christine lost her footing and fell forward an instant before a huge weight swooped into the space where she had stood. The side of a crate slammed her chest, driving air from her lungs. She stumbled, whirling onto her back, scuttling away from whatever it was. Then her breath returned in a rush, and she gasped.

Something moved; a gust of wind slammed the door, sealing the darkness.

Christine struggled to her knees, then to her feet. Dust made her mouth dry. She felt lightheaded; the pain in her ribs was the only thing pinning her to her body. _Erik_.

"You're here..." She could not see him, but she heard his intake of breath.

For a time there was no sound but that: his ragged breathing, loud and painful.

Christine searched for a word, a sentence, anything. Why was she here?

"I heard the news," she stumbled. "I needed to know. If you've gone."

She heard a hitch in his breathing, but nothing else. Darkness ate at her eyes. She searched for his face, his eyes, but there was nothing.

"The papers said, the invasion..." Christine's voice fell until it was almost inaudible. "But you're here."

She looked at where she thought he was, aware suddenly of just how stupid, how dangerous it had been to come here. She should have stayed home. She should never have come.

"I'm glad you are well," she said into the blackness. Bits of dust squeaked on her teeth. "I just... needed to know that. I'll go."

She turned back to the door, but his breathing stopped. This new silence was blind, thick. She could not move.

"Liar!" snapped a hard, empty whisper. Behind her.

Christine whipped around, but her eyes picked out nothing; blackness.

"What did you really want?" The voice was right at her ear now. His voice. "Did you think to see where I lived?"

She turned again to the voice; nothing.

"You thought it was a trick, perhaps? Did you! A joke, Christine?" There was a sudden rush of air and his hand clenched on her elbow, fever-hot. "You came to see the Phantom in a hovel in Montmartre, the Phantom working in an office – is that it? The supper wasn't enough for you?" He gripped her arm harder, shaking her. "Go on then! Feast your eyes!"

He wrenched her elbow forward and Christine stumbled after him, up the stairs, higher and higher. "Where," she gasped, "Stop it! Erik!"

He threw open a door at the top of the stairs and Christine found herself released; a moment later white-hot light blazed, dazzling her.

"Here it is! Look around!"

Christine did, her eyes swimming from the light. A moment's confusion resolved into an old room with a sloping ceiling and a single window she had seen from the street, and pale, yellowing wallpaper. It smelled like lamp oil and smoke. Right in front of her was a heavy work-table cluttered with drawings – and there beside it, stood Erik.

He was gripping the chair back with one hand, the other was held out as if to encompass the room, an ugly parody of the way he had shown her his lair. Christine felt her eyes make an inventory of his face, the shadow around his masked eye and the line at the corner of his mouth. His hair was wild over his bandage and his clothes were rumpled; he wore no jacket and one side of his shirt stuck out from under his waistcoat. His chest rose and fell quickly, with each breath._ My God_, Christine thought. _I found him._

"Is your curiosity satisfied, Mademoiselle Daaé?"

He was afraid of her. Christine saw it, and could not look away.

"I heard the news." There was a strength in that truth, mad as it was, she clutched at it. "I needed to know if you've gone."

"Gone."

"Yes. To Sedan, to work."

He laughed. It was a strange, echo-less sound, more like a sob. Then he turned away towards the window, as if he did not want to see her. Between them, the old floorboards made a moon-path, gleaming where they had been polished by too many treading feet, and Christine thought she could cross so easily, like walking on water.

"You believed me, then. You really thought I would go."

His tone mocked her, but Christine refused to hear it. She was vaguely aware of other furniture in the room, an iron bedstead, a chest of drawers, an easel, but she paid these no attention. Defiantly, she looked only at Erik. "Yes."

He gave another bark of laughter. "You trusted I was an _architect_, working in the daylight, designing buildings?"

Christine glanced at the plans on the work-table, then at the easel that held an unfinished drawing of an apartment block. The plan had a precise, sharpened beauty, almost like his music. She could not doubt it.

"Yes," she said. "I believed you."

His back jerked angrily, as from a touch. "You credulous little fool. Before, you thought me an angel."

"Perhaps... And you thought yourself a ghost."

"I am a ghost." He sounded far away.

"No. I can see you."

He whipped around; his face was ugly, sneering. "Is that what you're here for, Christine? To _see me_? Don't you know," his voice twisted, "what happens to respectable girls who go sneaking through Montmartre at night? Who come into a monster's house, alone?"

Christine realised she had bitten the inside of her cheek; she fought to unclamp her teeth, to speak. "The papers said there was fighting... In the East."

"Yes," Erik gave her a nasty smirk, "one might expect fighting, during a war. You thought to join the resistance, perhaps? If that's the case, I'm certain the Montmartre comm—"

"I don't want you to go."

The words snapped inside her, a lock breaking. Something terrible lay beyond that door, but the sheer relief Christine felt overwhelmed her – it didn't matter now. Nothing mattered.

The sneering lines disappeared from Erik's face, leaving it taut, expressionless. The open window behind him made a black frame: a strange motionless portrait in the too-bright room.

Christine smiled, and that smile hurt deeper than any wound. She had found him. It was not enough.

Erik watched as she came forward, past the chair, stepping over the shining moon-path towards him. His eyes darkened in warning when she was a pace away. "Christine..."

She stretched out her hand and held her palm to his cheek. It was not a caress; she pressed down hard, learning the strange texture of his skin: coarse stubble beneath her palm, smooth under her fingertips. Where her finger lay against the hairline at his temple, she could feel his pulse. He was here, not gone away. Here.

"Christine..." he said again, as she moved her hand down to his throat. The sound made a low vibration there, as if she was holding his voice in her hand. The voice she had loved so blindly.

He tensed when she tightened her fingers on his neck awkwardly, but did not pull away. Under her skin, under his skin, his blood ran faster, and Christine knew then she could hurt him still, the way he hurt her. But she did not want to...

With a sudden, swift move, Erik grabbed her hand and flung it aside. "Leave," he said hoarsely. "Leave, now."

His eyes were enraged and terrified, twin mirrors reflecting the light. Christine cradled her wrist in her other hand, but did not retreat from him.

"I tried that. It didn't work."

"I let you go, Christine!" he hissed. "I allowed you to leave, do you understand that?"

"But first, you locked the door."

"What?"

She smiled at him, dismally. He understood, and she could see him fighting it, willing it to not be so, as if the past could be escaped. "You locked the door. That night, in the dressing-room. Meg told me, and Madame Giry. I never even knew I was trapped."

She raised her hand to his cheek again; his skin was alive with tension and it was difficult, very difficult to remember the Phantom. She stepped closer, lacing her fingers into Erik's hair. The sensation was so dangerous – and she wanted this so badly, to feel his living hair, not the wig.

"I can't leave..." Christine spoke past the lump in her throat. "And I don't want you to go."

She stretched up tentatively and put her lips against his.

For an agonising moment nothing happened, he was solid and immovable against her and she thought it was over; he would turn away. Then, so slowly that Christine almost believed she imagined it, she felt his mouth open a little, to let her inside.

It was a shock to taste him suddenly, to find him open. In a flash of fear Christine knew what he was doing: they had poured a cup of poison and she had given him a sip, but this next draught was hers. She had no choice; she pulled him against her fiercely, drinking deep, entering his mouth, unable to hold back when she felt the sound he made. He remembered her; he wanted this, he _had_ to want this – and then his tongue flicked past hers, into her, and Christine felt him grip her shoulders and knew at last that she was not alone.

She had never kissed him in the light before, it was so strange that Christine wanted to open her eyes, to see what he looked like now, but she could not stop. Erik raised his hands to her back, and she clutched at the back of his neck, at his head. The bandage was a rough, unfamiliar thing there; Christine tugged at it, needing again the Opéra cellars and the window of her room, but the mask was bound tight. She turned her head, her chin rasping against the damp skin beneath his mouth.

"Erik... Take it off."

Everything stopped. Christine opened her eyes and saw that Erik had not moved; he had merely gone very still, like a predator threatened.

"What for, Christine? Shall I let you pity the monster? Would you like that?"

He was so close that between them they made their own small darkness, an island of shadow in the unfamiliar lighted room. Christine moved away, and said:

"I want to see you... As you are."

Erik looked at her in their shadowed space as if he could not believe it, as if he would grab her head and kiss her again with the mask. Then a deep line cut between his brows, and Christine knew he fought a silent battle within him now, against himself.

"Show me," she asked, and waited for what seemed like an eternity before Erik took her hand and guided it to a tiny knot just above the nape of his neck.

"There." His voice was so low that Christine heard it with her spine. The disturbing pressure of his hand on hers was almost enough to make her want to keep still, to let him hide from her if he so chose. That snapped her out of it.

Erik sank down on the chair to let her reach and turned away, and Christine untied the linen and unwound it, revealing strip by strip the ruined side of his head, the scars made angrier by the chafing of the cloth against them.

"Don't touch it!"

His skin felt hot and inflamed there, but when he jerked from her touch, Christine did not think it was from pain. He took up the rest of the bandage, with the padding that had gone over his cheek and brow, and threw it to the table in disgust.

"Well?" he demanded, staring into the tabletop. "Is it pretty?"

Christine hesitated a moment, then reached over to his shoulder, drawing him back towards her. Before he could pull away, she kissed that side of his head. It was a clumsy, misjudged kiss, but Erik froze at the contact. More certainly now, Christine traced his reddened scars with her lips, then with the tip of her tongue. He gasped when she did it and it gave her a dark pleasure to hear him make those sounds, to feel him respond when she followed the ridges from above his ear to his brow, around his eye, to his cheek. When she thought nobody had ever touched him, kissed him, she felt a curious tightness in her belly; it made her half-mad, powerful.

"No," Erik moved her around to the other side, pulling her almost roughly to straddle him, trying to turn his head away. "Don't – Christine..."

She shook her head, refusing to stop, until Erik drew his hand up along her leg and suddenly Christine could not move; he had frozen her as she had him, by the lightest touch on her body. She realised she was sitting above him, a bizarre position that almost reminded her of ballet, full _plié_, but this was new, perversely exciting. Skirts bunched up between them as Erik moved his hand above her knee, past her stocking, then hesitatingly to her bare thigh. Christine heard a sound, 'ahh' and then felt herself making it. Erik slid his fingers against her skin, under the edge of the stocking, as if it too was some kind of mask.

"Show me," he said, and his voice hurt her – but his eyes beseeched her with a deep, desperate hunger.

They were frantic after that; Christine felt her hands shaking madly as she untied Erik's cravat, opened his waistcoat, his shirt, trying to find him under all the impossible layers, impatient for him to unbutton her dress and loosen her corset, cursing laces and frills. She wanted only to be with him then, to see, to touch, to taste, to know what he felt like. It was not right, but there was no other way for her anymore; she had become lost long ago and now she had grown too wild, too different ever to go home.

In the bed, under the thin blanket, Christine was aware of his warm scent on the pillow – it surrounded her as Erik planted feather-light kisses on forehead, her cheek, her throat, her collarbone, as though he thought her a delusion or a dream. When his lips brushed against a nipple, she caught a sharp, violent breath. Erik stopped and Christine became painfully aware that there was no more contact between them, and then she could not stand it. Erik made a sound of shock when she buried her hands in his hair, and she guided him back to her, shy and wanton and terrified.

"I'm here," she said. "I'm here..."

"Christine..." Erik muttered against her skin, the name like a spell to bind her to him, to keep her, and Christine squirmed at this new caress of sound. "Christine, Christine, Christine..." he repeated, and her own name in his voice seemed to wind a coil inside her, tighter and tighter until she was aware of every light touch, of the accidental bump of his hip against hers, of the slight tremor of his body as he moved up. His hair brushed her mouth, and Christine rose under it to kiss his throat, to memorise the taste of his skin. He tasted like tears and smoke, the slow melt of a candle weeping – and Christine wished she could quench that bitterness and hide it from him, make him whole. She tried what he had done to her, her tongue darting out over his chest, the light hair there, until she found the spot and Erik made a low, stifled sound that lanced through her body, urging her on.

They were too rough, too impatient to experiment, drowning too fast to think about anything but the moment: the unknown sensation of lips on skin, of kisses that broke into something harder, more painful, the burning strangeness of being touched. It was not pleasure Christine felt when Erik pressed up against her and she opened to him, it was more like need, a painful longing that did not diminish with the pain but only sought more, enough to be filled.

Erik raised her over him roughly, his hands hard on her hips, and at last Christine felt the pain yield, and something dark, beautiful transformed Erik's eyes. She looked down at him, wanting to remember this, the gaslight white-hot on every curve of his face, on his swollen mouth, on the scars and the shadow of stubble on one cheek.

"You are..." She was afraid he would say 'mine' or 'beautiful', but he said only "Christine!" – and then Christine felt her body give way and she fell, over him, with him, spiralling down into the void.

He clung to her, moving, a strange swaying in which Christine heard fragments of words she could not understand; then he cried out against her and she held him, shuddering, lost.

They lay tangled in the narrow bed, breathing together, two survivors of a shipwreck thrown out into the light. There was a heaviness in Christine's bones that made her feel she had really struggled against an ocean, against a current that would tug her away. Gradually, she became aware of herself again, then of Erik. He lay motionless next to her, as if he was not there at all. Only the faint movement of a curl of her hair, where it fell against his face, gave him away.

She was afraid to speak. Erik stirred slightly and moved away; Christine felt a sudden coldness where his hip had touched her leg, and now there was nothing. The sheet was coarse and sticky under her sensitised skin, and she tried not to wonder if there was blood, if the pain she had felt had meant she was broken. She did not feel broken. She felt numb, as though another's soul had possessed her body, and now she had her body back but could not recall how it worked.

"Christine..." Erik's voice startled her. He did not move, but when Christine met his eyes, she saw an infinite pain there, beyond tears. "Why did you have to come here? I told you to leave."

Christine forgot the mess of the bed and the bright light above them that made everything too real, too palpable. She raised her hand and touched his face, the only side she could see, the scarred side. He did not shrink from her touch, but neither did he welcome it. His skin was smooth as warped candles, and cold.

"Erik, tell me something..."

"What?"

"Anything," she said, moving her hand away, conscious of a sudden shyness. She had touched him, possessed him, allowed him inside her, thinking that was all she needed. But lying here with him, she ached with a painful, impossible desire for him to stretch out his arm and embrace her to him, to sing to her, to tell her the things he thought about.

"What was your mother's name?" she asked, and saw by the twist of his mouth that he did not want to tell her, that he wished she would go. Christine thought she might cry.

"I don't know," Erik said after a long, long silence. There was no hardness in his voice, only a kind of muted note that made Christine remember the Moonlight Sonata, the three rising notes, trembling. "I suppose she had a name like all women. I called her Mother, before she sold me." He paused again, and then added grudgingly, "She could sing. I remember that."

"And your father?"

Erik shrugged. "I'm sure he was nothing like yours."

"I don't remember my mother," Christine said thoughtfully. "But I remember when she died. My father locked himself in his room, and would not come out. I remember that door, every crevice on it. I scratched at it with my nails, when he wouldn't let me in. He never did. A fat woman who lived next door heard me, and she dragged me to her house, screaming all the way. My father heard that, and came outside, and he never left me again. Well – until... But he could not help that."

Erik gave her a long, half-distant look, as though he was studying the shape of her face. Then he surprised her by asking, "Do you remember Sweden?"

Christine nodded. "A little. Sometimes I don't know if it's Sweden I remember or some other place we travelled to. I remember the trains mostly, and the inns. We got to stay at good hotels now and then, but I liked the inns better. I'd climb up on a table and sing. Father frowned at it, but I loved to stand above all the grown-ups, singing..." Christine shook her head slightly. "I imagined I was on stage with him."

"I travelled too," Erik said. "With the gypsies." Christine caught his eyes, but there was almost no bitterness in them. "I remember nothing of it, except the cages. They put the other freaks into my cage when the caravan moved, to save space: a girl with a beard, an old man with sooty skin and a smile carved into his mouth. None of them talked to me – Paolo, the keeper, told them I was cursed and they'd catch my deformity."

"They would not talk to you?" Christine asked, aghast.

Erik's mouth drew into a tight line. "I did not encourage it, you understand. I did not want to talk to freaks either. It's bad enough having this face; I hardly needed to catch a deformed mouth into the bargain."

He gave her a crooked smile, and Christine did not know if he wanted her to join his mockery of his own past, or if he was saying this to hurt himself, and her. She reached up and touched her fingers to his lips gingerly, outlining his mouth. He covered her hand with his, and Christine feared he would push her away. Instead, he said, "It is too bright here. The lights..."

Christine felt him move across the blanket, over her, standing up. She averted her eyes, sensing instinctively that he wanted privacy, that she should not look at him now. Then the lights went out and it was completely dark again. Christine moved aside as Erik returned to bed, and this time she felt something had changed in him. He slid under the covers behind her and Christine felt soft, dry fabric on her burning shoulder: his shirt. He put it on her, tucking up the sleeves awkwardly, and then raised his arm to gather her close, breathing into her hair – small shallow breaths that somehow comforted her. Christine curled up inside him, and pretended they were happy.


	22. As You Are

Thanks for your continuing support of this story, guys! Your reviews mean a great deal to me. A belated reply to **Faust **about Chapter 20: this is not the Les Mis revolution but the embryonic stages of what eventually grew into the Paris Commune.

Trivia: This chapter's events take place on August 8, 1870. That might give you a hint of things to come. ;)

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**Chapter 22 – As You Are**

The first thing Erik knew was an extraordinary warmth permeating his entire body, and a dim, infinite sense of peace. He drifted down through the last few moments of near-sleep, drinking in this unexpected gift as greedily as a freakish child whose cage had been left out in the sun. It was always half-dark behind the burlap mask of the sack, but on an early morning like this one, the sun could slant past the bars of his cage and pierce through the slits in the sack. He would shut his eyes against it, and then the light would become gentler, spreading in a languid glow over his demon-face, stroking him with a lover's tender hands. Yet it was not just his face that was turned to the sun now. Erik felt its warm caress on his chest, on his thighs...

His heart lurched, and his eyes flew open.

_Christine._

Like a sleepwalker at a cliff-edge, Erik realised he woke up a moment from mortal peril. There was no sun; the room was still dark with the bluish shadows of pre-dawn.

The warmth he felt came from Christine.

Her tiny delicate body was curled against him, a cascade of dark curls tumbling forward over her face. Erik was suddenly, disturbingly conscious of each ridge of her spine where it met his chest through the fabric of his shirt, of the proximity of the sweat-damp little hairs on her neck, caught under the collar. His own shirt on Christine's... He fought for a breath.

Memory came as an explosion of white, an unbelievable confusion of sensations he could not untangle one from another, did not want to. For one delirious moment he believed it, and wondered whether he could have possibly pleased her, and then whether she had been hurt by his clumsy demands; he felt newly made, a paradox: at once anxious and triumphant. Above all of that was the simple, incredible truth. Christine, his Christine had come back to him – she loved him!...

Then the moment was over, and he remembered.

A sick terror strangled the peace Erik had felt, turning his own skin into a cold shell. He could move again; he rolled back. Icy sweat doused him where Christine's soft, warm body had been.

He had brought her here. Brought her to _this_.

He staggered to the floor, away from the bed. His lingering desire was a monstrous thing he could not control. God, he was naked... Christine – her hands – he had wanted her to touch – he had dragged up here, screaming, exactly as in his nightmares – she had told him she could not leave – she'd kissed his awful face, and then – oh God. The world swayed and Erik nearly fell, only catching himself at the last moment on the top of the chair. His heel slipped on a piece of clothing; he lifted his foot: Christine's dress.

Erik stood and stared down at it, his chest heaving. There were black smudges of dust all over her skirts, from when she had scrambled away from him down in the store-room. A couple of buttons were missing; was that him, too? He was not sure, but it didn't matter. He could not look down at himself, he was terrified that he would see a reflection of his face all over his body: maggot-eaten flesh, a demon's skin.

He had done this to her.

He had called Christine back to him again with his music, his vengeance... The Moonlight Sonata. Erik remembered his decision to play it: a malicious choice, a snake's venomous kiss. He had done it as payback for Christine's abandonment: dark, unbearable music to haunt her mind and erode her calm, masquerading as a popular piece, seemingly innocuous. He'd had a vicious urge to prove to Christine that she was not free of him. It had seemed nothing more than a moment's rage; he had believed it was over, had never imagined ... this.

_I told you to leave_, he remembered saying – and Christine's terrible smile: _But first, you locked the door._

This was worse, infinitely worse, than awakening in Sedan to piles of mutilated, destroyed sketches. Erik bent down painfully to pick up Christine's clothes, his clothes. Every movement required the utmost concentration, and for the minutes it took to clear the floor, he felt almost sane, in control. He dragged himself over to the washstand and managed to clean up a little, then found a fresh shirt, undergarments. Fumbling with urgency, he pulled all these on, trousers, suspenders, the rest of it. The thought that Christine could wake up any instant and see him spurred him on; yet Erik could already feel new layers of perspiration dampening the clean fabric. His memory surged with the image of Christine on top of him, brighter than any light, of his own hands slamming her slender hips down...

Erik grabbed at the window-frame, holding on to the splintery wood, and stuck his head outside. Cold air swept his face, but the horror throbbed within him, unabated. He had finally done it; robbed Christine of her will and imprisoned her again. Locked the door. Mindlessly, Erik noted that dawn was starting; against the lightening sky, roofs and chimneys across the street zigzagged like rotting, pointed teeth.

The world had treated him as a monster, but Christine had never treated him as anything but a man... And he was a man. A man who could not be content with the miracles he had been given, who had to take everything, destroy the one beautiful thing that had breathed joy into his life. Christine had come to him last night because of the music; and savagely, he took the desperation she offered, with his entire body crying out her name, as though it was love.

Erik looked back to the bed. Christine lay still, curled up in his shirt with the blanket around her waist. Her pose was defensive somehow, hurt. She was so thin; his shirt seemed enormous compared with her small hands, and Erik felt shame rise inside him like tears. She was more beautiful than he had ever seen her, more than everything, everything he had ever wanted. And he had no right to this stolen joy. He had to let her go.

"Christine..." he said softly, into the air. It was shameful, he knew, but he could not restrain himself from this last caress, from bringing her awake with his voice. She stirred a little and stretched, sleepy and heart-stoppingly beautiful. "Christine..." he said again.

She sat up, and Erik found himself mute. Her dark, luminous eyes found him in the dawn-light and held him there, helpless. He saw the exact moment when understanding returned: Christine's eyelashes flicked and her pupils went wide; she grabbed the blanket to her chest, then remembered the rest and her grip loosened, as if she had to tell herself not to hide from his gaze anymore.

The silence fell between them.

"It is morning," said Erik finally.

Christine looked him over. "You're dressed..."

Erik winced; of course she felt exposed opposite him, with nothing but his shirt and a blanket. "Forgive me," he said. "I did not mean to embarrass you."

He started to turn away to give her a chance to get dressed – and in that instant, discovered that had not put on the bandage. For the first time in his entire life, he had completely forgotten his mask.

Unable to reach for it while Christine was dressing, Erik looked around the bare wall, out the window, anywhere but at Christine, feeling cold and naked, as exposed as she. He heard her moving around uncertainly, trying to collect her clothes. Then water splashed; she had found the washstand. Using the moment, Erik seized the bunched linen off the table and arranged the padding around his eye, wrapping the rest over his head with quick, accustomed motions. Its touch on his skin seemed to calm him somehow, making him more rational. He slowed, taking care to fix the knot tightly in the way he had done for many months.

By the time he had finished, he could turn and meet Christine's eyes. She had dusted off her dress as best she could, but there was no hiding the reddened skin where her mouth and cheek had been marred by his kisses. He saw her fingers tugging at a button that hung by a thread. Three more buttons were missing.

"It's all right," she said in reply to his silent inspection. "It's not important. Just a dress." Yet her fingers continued toying with the button, rolling it around. Erik wanted to stop her hands and move them away, but he was afraid that he would not be able to let go, that he would hold her hands and press kisses to her knuckles and then he would fall apart.

Christine lowered her eyes to the tabletop, where the previous night's unfinished sketches were still spread. "Are these for your work?"

Erik hesitated. "Yes," he admitted. "An apartment building near the Gare Saint-Lazare."

"May I see?"

He moved his arm aside. "If it interests you."

She stepped up to the table, making him draw an involuntary breath. Erik tried to keep his self-control. "There is nothing of note here, I assure you. I am only redesigning part of the plan to allow for better lighting."

"All right. I won't judge it harshly." Christine spoke lightly, but Erik could see what it cost her by the tension in her hands as she held them above the drawing, not daring to touch it. She looked up:

"Do you enjoy it?"

Her face was serious and achingly beautiful in the weak light from the window, and on it, the scarlet marks left by his stubble and his coarse fingers were vivid as blood. White skin, so easily bruised.

He had done this.

Erik felt himself recede behind the mask, into the deeper ugliness of his mind. Christine had told him, _I want to see you, as you are_. That was what he had to show her then. Himself, as he was.

"There is the occasional interesting project," he replied, "certainly. Did you know, for instance, that the de Chagny family were building a house in Saint-Cloud?"

Erik saw the shock strike Christine's face, and then the spreading blush, merging with the red marks. He had reminded her of Raoul.

"Erik, why are you telling me this?"

"Because my firm has the commission to build that house. I found this out the day I began work. Can you imagine the effect this extraordinary discovery had on me?"

She was silent; clever girl. Erik felt stronger.

"I was furious, Christine. I do not mean that I was angry; I was quite beyond that. Call it madness. I assumed that the house was yours and that the situation was quite deliberately arranged by the one to whom I owed my presence in that office in the first place."

"Madame Giry?.."

Erik nodded slowly. He looked straight into Christine's eyes, her beautiful, disbelieving eyes, and said, "You remember that night on the balcony? You saw the rope."

She did not move.

"The latch on the balcony door. Was it not broken that night?"

She believed him. He saw it in her whole aspect, in the way she unconsciously drew back, appalled. Yet her voice was steady: "That isn't true. You said you were not there to harm us."

"_You_, Christine. I would not have harmed you."

A sickly pallor replaced the heat in her face, as if he had stolen her breath and she was turning into wax, into the statue in his lair. Erik leaned forward and sealed his numb, unmoving lips to her cold forehead.

"You want me to go," Christine whispered, barely audible.

Erik moved his lips to her hair. He could not kiss her. "Go."

She turned for the door, wrenching it open with a strength Erik could not have imagined, and flew down the stairs. The door swung on its hinges, a long _squeeeeeeeak_, and thudded shut.

Erik sat down slowly at his table and picked up a pencil. He looked it dumbly. A foreign object. What was he doing here? In this room, in this life? Morning had dawned grey and empty, the night was long gone...

Christine's muffled footsteps flitted over the stairs – then there was a sudden confusion of noise.

A split second later Erik's door flew open, crashing violently into the wall, so that the whole house gave a shudder. Louise Gandon barged into the room, heading straight for him, dragging Christine in by the wrist.

"What the hell do you mean by _this_!" She shoved Christine at Erik.

Erik's heart dropped as Christine made a sharp cry of pain.

"_Salaud!_ Will you sit there like a turd in a chamber-pot or will you explain what this chit is doing here?" Louise stabbed a finger at Christine's dress: "This is how you like them, is it! Young and pretty in fine clothes?"

Her face had gone a terrible shade of purple. "_Sale cochon!_" she hissed. "You filthy swine, any lackwit can see she's not even a whore! No whore would stand for this, turned out half-dressed into the street! No, only a brainless little bourgeois twit—"

Erik threw himself at the woman, grasping her shoulders. He bared his teeth at her, all animal in this one moment, conscious of nothing but Christine's whimper in Louise's vice-like grip.

"Release her," he managed between his teeth. "Release her, or I swear, they will not find enough of you to bury."

Louise struggled against his hold, but Erik gripped her brutally; digging into the flesh of her shoulders until moisture beaded on her broad forehead. She had not expected such strength from him, he could smell her fear. He wanted her dead, he would kill her, kill the meddling hag.

"Erik, stop."

Christine's quiet voice startled him, a single note of sanity. Erik realised Louise was no longer holding Christine; Christine had stepped away. He sucked in a breath, and threw Louise backwards, away from him.

She lurched, but did not lose her balance. Tears of pain stood out in her eyes, but she only turned to Christine and jerked her chin in the direction of the bed. "What does your _maman_ say of this, mam'zelle?"

"My mother is dead, madame."

Louise blinked, then gave a mournful toss of her kerchiefed head. "How old are you, girl? Sixteen?"

"Seventeen," Christine said in a stronger voice than Erik had expected. "I thank you for your concern," she went on, "but I am all right."

"Middle-class respectability, my arse... Ruddy Empire." Striding over to the bed, Louise ripped the blanket away.

Erik saw the specks of blood at the same time as she did.

Christine made a pitiful little sound, and Erik could not look at her. He wished she had not stopped him killing Louise.

"_Merde..._" the woman swore wearily.

Erik reached for the door. "Leave us," he demanded.

Louise glanced at him in profound disgust, and Erik abruptly identified the burning in his chest as shame. For the first time, he wondered exactly how he had expected Christine to get back home, or – his gut squeezed uncomfortably – whether she had been missed this night, or... There were too many 'or's, and none of them were pleasant.

"I'll get a cab," he told Christine, quietly. She nodded, and he reached for his hat, moving slowly, as through water.

"Come along, Mademoiselle Skin-and-Bones," Louise directed eventually. "We'll get that dress fixed up. I'm Louise Gandon, your so-called gentleman's landlady."

Christine managed a curtsey. "Christine Daaé, madame."

Erik snapped the hat on his head and fled the room. A cab, he had to find a cab. He was a shaking, rattling mess of nerves but he knew he had to do this thing now, for Christine. He could not think of anything else, not yet.

Near rue Lepic he finally found a hansom and had to restrain himself from hauling the driver back physically, or knocking the old fool off his box and driving the damn thing himself. He had left Christine alone in the company of a woman who had dragged her by the wrist and humiliated her after all his abuses, who thought nothing of violence, who knew him for a murderer and didn't care – a woman who, Erik recalled with a start, had spoken of a revolution only the previous morning. What if she hurt Christine?

Getting back to the store seemed to take forever; and Erik was convinced that Christine was surely dead and it was his fault, when at last she came outside. Louise shepherded her out, telling her something and shaking a fat finger in her face, and then went back inside. Christine looked unharmed. In fact, she was a great deal calmer, and her clothes seemed in better shape.

Erik opened the door of the cab for her, forgetting all about Louise and everything that had happened when Christine put her gloved hand in his. She was so strong, he thought, this strange morning. How could she bring herself to touch him?

"Erik," Christine muttered, and he realised he was still holding her hand when she was inside and seated. He looked up at her, not knowing how to let go.

Her hand slipped out of his. "I saw the ring. It was there on your shelf, when you were showing me the sketches..."

"I'll get rid of it," Erik promised, but Christine shook her head:

"Keep it. Please keep it."

Then the snap of a whip got the horse moving and the cab rolled away, taking Christine with it. Long after it was gone, Erik could still hear the carriage-springs squeaking. He waited until that, too, was gone.

Then he went back inside the store, found Louise, and told her very calmly: "I am leaving Paris."


	23. Family

Thank you so much for your reviews, guys – they keep me going even when the going is very tough! A bit of quickie housekeeping for those confused by the title of Chapter 21: ghosts may indeed dissolve by daylight, but there is no daylight in that chapter. There's the rub. ;)

In reply to **Fantomenfan1**, and also because I think this has to be admitted at this point: this fic is **not** going to have an R/C end. Okay? All on board? Great. Then back to the story.

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**Chapter 23 – Family**

In the cab, Christine sat with her hands folded in her lap, trying to look only straight ahead at the trotting horse. She was unused to being outside at this early hour, when the pale light painted buildings on the boulevards into things entirely unknown, stretching lilac shadows at improbable angles, throwing doorways into stark relief. It made her feel distant from it all, an alien in a city she had lived in since childhood. The Opéra had looked just like this on her return from the candle-lit cellars below: subtly altered without appearing any different, as if it was she herself who had changed.

And had she changed? Christine allowed the thought to spread through her, questing fingers searching for damage she did not feel. All she found was a kind of relief, a resignation to having done the inevitable. It was as though for the longest time she had been drowning, sinking through heavy water, and last night her feet had finally found the rocks and silt at the bottom and she had pushed instinctively upwards, desperate to break the surface and breathe. In a detached sort of way, Christine thought she ought to be appalled by what she had done, or ashamed, but she did not feel it. Perhaps there was simply nothing left inside her after the evening's terror, the night's need, the morning's humiliation... Yet in this numbness dark longings stirred like serpents waking, and she could not help seeing Erik's face open to hers in the light, his hair falling against her mouth.

He had not, after all, moved on, leaving her behind like debris strewn across the dance-floor after the end of a masquerade. He did not want this thing they had created between them, any more than she did – but the knowledge that it existed in him, too, was sharp and clear inside Christine, the shards of glass from a broken mirror. It hurt, but it was nonetheless a tremendous release, almost freedom.

It was still very early when she got home, less than an hour after sunrise. Christine took off her wrap, hat, shoes, and put everything away in its place, all the familiar actions made a little surreal by the morning light. There was still plenty of time to take herself to her room, change her clothes, maybe even get some sleep. She felt unnaturally calm and empty, almost indifferent. Spirit-like, she drifted through the parlour, opened the doors to the dim, sleepy dining-room and came inside.

It took her a moment to realise the room was not empty.

Meg was standing in her nightshirt with her back to the table, watching Christine. Behind strands of blonde hair, her face was white and utterly blank.

Christine halted, not knowing what to say. A tiny movement of Meg's hand caught her attention, and she saw Meg was holding the envelope with Erik's thank-you note. From where she stood, Christine could just about read the address: 15, rue Fontenelle.

The skin of her hands was turning damp. She ran her palms over the sides of her skirt.

"I didn't go to the cemetery," she admitted.

Meg made no response, did not even acknowledge that Christine had spoken, and this silence bore down on Christine more heavily than anything she could have said. In Meg's red-rimmed eyes she saw the sleepless night reflected as clearly as if it was being played out before her.

All the shame Christine had not felt before filled her lungs at once, choking her.

"Meg, how long have you been up?"

"Hours. I waited for you all evening, then I fell asleep in the parlour. _Maman_ came home after midnight, woke me and told me to go to bed. I thought you were back. I got dressed for bed and looked in your room, but you weren't there. Only this." Meg held out the envelope.

Christine took it from her, feeling faintly sick. "Meg..."

"I didn't know what to do," Meg was almost whispering. "I thought of waking _maman_, but to what end, in the middle of the night? The police would do nothing until morning, and even then, with the riots..."

Her voice cracked, and for a dreadful moment, Christine could see exactly what Meg had gone through this night: her uncertainty, her fears, imagination picking over the worst possibilities like rosary beads, around and around. She, who had spent so much of her own life in fear, had thoughtlessly done this to Meg. The monumental selfishness of it took her breath away.

She wanted to apologise and could find no words except, "I'm sorry, I am so sorry..."

It was weak and silly, the kind of apology one might make after borrowing a ribbon without asking. Christine stared down at her hands, at her skirt, at the way the shadows fell into the folds of fabric. She wished she could disappear.

"Did he hurt you?" Meg asked unexpectedly.

Christine glanced up and followed the direction of Meg's gaze to her own dress, noting the pins on her bodice that replaced missing buttons, and the faint remnants of dust which Erik's landlady had not managed to brush out of her skirts.

"I fell." The truth of it sounded absurd in Christine's own ears. "I found his house, but it was dark..."

She thought to explain; all the half-sensible reasons about the war and Erik leaving Paris were already poised on the edge of her lips, but then she closed her mouth with a snap and said instead:

"I needed to see him again. To make sure that I wasn't crazy." Christine heard her voice stretch thin but strong somehow, like spider-silk. "Meg, I just needed to see him."

"Naked." Meg supplied.

Christine gaped, and in that flustered moment Meg shook herself, casting off the stupor of the night, and became pragmatic:

"You can't tell _maman_, she'll kill you. You better go and change out of that... I think I have some buttons that match, I'll go look now."

"Meg," Christine called after her quietly. "Thank you..."

Meg looked back for a moment, dishevelled in her unslept-in nightgown. She paused, seemingly debating something with herself. Then her eyes widened slightly, as if she asked against her own better judgement:

"Did he do something to you? When you sang with him on stage that last time, your eyes went all strange, like you couldn't fight him. Perhaps at the supper..."

Christine moved her head from side to side, No, until Meg fell silent. "This was me, Meg. All me."

"But you don't regret it."

"No."

Meg looked at her for a moment longer, then shrugged in that resigned way she sometimes did at rehearsals, when they encountered an impossible, unnecessarily complicated dance step.

"Go on, before _maman_ finds you here. I'll bring the buttons."

Christine nodded gratefully. She was about to head to her room when her gaze landed on the balcony door. The new latch was polished brass, a replacement for the broken one. With a stab of belated fear, Christine imagined Erik out there, behind the curtains, waiting like a silent black shadow in a cloak and mask. Madame Giry had sat right here at the table, and then Christine had joined her after the Tuileries ball and they talked. Had her own arrival saved Madame Giry? It was an odd, disquieting idea. Christine did not want to think about it, but her mind resolutely turned to Erik's room, to the recent but dreamlike memory of his eyes in the greyish light of morning as he told her about this.

He did not want her forgiveness, and she did not want to give it – yet he had looked at her as if she had been a priest, as if she must hear his confession. There had been resentment in that look, and anger, but Christine felt a sudden fierce desire to protect the moment, to keep it as he had kept her ring.

With a swift movement, Christine flicked the latch and swung open the door to the balcony. Fresh air blew into the room. It ruffled the curtains, her hair, her skirts, and Christine took a deep breath, then another. And then she was simply standing there alone with the morning, inhaling lungfuls of cool air that smelled of horses and dew and some neighbour's early cooking, and in this one moment she felt she needed nothing else.

"It'll be all right," she said aloud, and it felt good to hear it. "Everything will be all right."

o o o

"It is nothing short of a disaster."

The Comte de Chagny said this in his usual calm, clipped tone, but Raoul had no trouble spotting the anxious edge in his father's movements. The Comte rose from his place at the head of the dining table and moved briskly to stand behind his chair, as though taking the floor at the emergency session of the Assembly for the second time this evening. Raoul saw his mother's frown of disapproval.

The Comte wrapped his hands around the oak chair, his fingers indenting the heavy upholstery.

"A crowd of a hundred thousand cramming the quays." He turned to Raoul, "I assume you did see them?"

"Yes, Father. I saw them." Raoul suppressed a twinge of annoyance at the question, and made an effort to continue sawing at his steak. It was done to perfection, and he wished it was not, so that he could pretend to be engrossed in the process of consuming it. In the time since he had lost Christine, his father had become the more determined to make a politician of him, and Raoul was rapidly tiring of these misguided concerns for his welfare imposed on him every time he obeyed his filial duty and paid his parents a visit.

Yet this time, his father did not press more questions on him, but merely resumed his speech, as if delivering a prepared peroration:

"A crowd of a hundred thousand outside, calling for a Republic, and what happens in the chamber? Nothing but bickering! Jules Favre and the Left are wringing their hands as usual and debating the logic of starting a riot – while the Right are heaping blame on Ollivier and us with him, as though it was not de Gramont but I who, two months ago, was demanding immediate action against Prussia."

"Really, my dear," the Comtesse remonstrated, "cannot this keep until after supper?"

"I'm afraid not." The Comte ran his hands through his silvered hair, and sat down again, heavily. "Ollivier is finished. The Right have taken over the government."

In the ensuing silence, Raoul could only stare at his father. There was nothing in his bearing to suggest a man defeated; his shoulders did not stoop and his eyes measured Raoul as coolly as ever, and yet Raoul understood very well that he was looking at the end of his father's career. The Comte de Chagny had thrown in his lot with Ollivier's party, rejecting the hard-line imperialists on the Right in seeking a constitutional monarchy, a Liberal Empire. These aspirations meant little to Raoul, but in the face of his father's calm demeanour at delivering such news, he felt a pang of fellow-feeling. This sudden sympathy for his father was oddly disturbing.

Across the table, his mother set down her knife and fork, saying in a neutral voice, "What happens now, Arsène."

Raoul could not remember the last time she had addressed his father by his given name.

"Ollivier is taking his wife to Italy. I imagine they will not delay their departure any longer than is necessary."

The Comtesse considered for a moment. "You are proposing we join them?"

"That seems best."

Raoul watched as their conversation continued in silence, without gesture or expression, as if his parents had withdrawn to another place where he could not hear them. He wondered that they could be so accepting of this, as if the two of them made a habit of going into exile every now and then. He supposed it was for the best: if they left the country, it would make the decision he had come to over the past few weeks somewhat easier.

Finally, the Comtesse touched a fingertip to the corner of her eye, briefly, and then the usual charming smile returned to her face. "I admit, it has been entirely too long since we have had a holiday abroad. I should very much like to see Florence again. Raoul, darling, do you remember Florence?"

The question took Raoul by surprise. "I can't say that I do."

"No, I suppose you wouldn't; you were rather young. You will find it delightful, I'm sure. It will be just what you need: a complete change of scene and society."

Raoul's heart skipped. So they expected him to come with them. He tried to make his voice gentle, but when he spoke it sounded strained:

"I am not going, _maman_."

"Don't be silly, darling, of course you are," she waved him off – at the same time as the Comte demanded: "What do you mean, you are not going?"

Raoul took his starched napkin, folded it carefully in half and then in half again, placed it beside his plate, and stood up. He squared his shoulders.

"Forgive me, but I cannot come with you to Italy. You have my deep sympathies, Father, on the matter of Monsieur Ollivier's misfortune, but I am unable to leave France at present, and unwilling to do so. I do hope you will understand that I have my own affairs to attend to."

His father's stern brows lifted in an ironical way Raoul did not like. "Dare I hope that these 'affairs' are not another wearisome round of frivolity and melodrama involving Parisian chorus girls?"

"They are not." What sympathy Raoul had felt for his father's plight was evaporating.

"Come darling," the Comtesse said peaceably, "of course you must be unhappy at this news. Your father and I completely understand your reluctance to leave all your friends behind so precipitously, but what affairs could you possibly place above the safety of your own family?"

The Comte gave a long sigh. "My dear, I believe all our son's affairs may be safely archived under the name 'Christine Daaé'."

Raoul reached into his pocket and withdrew a letter. Without saying another word he opened it and placed it on the table where his parents could see the official stamps from the War Office.

"You may file this under whatever name you like," he told his father. "I hadn't wanted you to find out this way, but perhaps it is best after all."

For a moment, both his parents were speechless. Then the Comtesse made a stricken, birdlike sound in her throat. "You cannot do this. Raoul, this is a cruel joke."

"It is no joke, _maman_. I'm sorry."

"Very well." His father sounded tired. "I wish I had discovered these papers sooner, but no matter now. How much is this folly going to cost us?"

"This is not a conscription," Raoul pointed out. "You cannot buy a replacement."

"Nonsense; it is a question only of price."

"Quite to the contrary." Raoul picked up the letter, and tucked it into his pocket. "It is a question of decency. I admit I have not your political acumen, Father, but I will not allow another man to die in my place."

"Then you are a fool," the Comte snapped. "Were you not paying attention to anything I have tried to teach you? The army of France is a shambles, and your presence in it, untrained as you are, is completely superfluous!"

Raoul shrugged. "My presence in Italy would be no less superfluous, and likely more so. At any rate, it will be," – he gave his mother a tight, apologetic smile – "a change of scene and society."

He went to his mother, kissed her cold cheek, and then stood before his father with his hand held out, until at length, the Comte shook it, and turned away.

"I will write to you in Italy. I hope your journey is a pleasant and safe one."

Raoul waited for them to say something, for an answer.

"Berthe." His mother raised her voice, calling the maid over. "We will have the coffee now."


	24. L'amourette du Fantôme

Sorry about the long absence, guys – I've been out of town and now I'm in the middle of a serious work overload and unfortunately writing time is hard to come by. Here's a long chapter to make up for it!

Instead of random trivia, this chapter has an epigraph of sorts: a stanza from a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, _Duineser Elegien_, published in 1923. The translation is from German. (Thanks to Carly for drawing my attention to the book wherein this poem was mentioned.)

_Every angel is terrifying. I know it, yet still, alas!  
__I must sing to invoke you – you, great near-deadly birds  
__of the soul! Where have they gone, the days of Tobias  
__when one of those brilliant ones stood at the door  
__of the unexceptional house? Dressed for the journey  
__he was not at all terrible, a youth to a youth  
__who eagerly spied him. But should the Archangel –  
__dangerous, masked by the stars - should **he** tread  
__but a step lower and closer we should be struck down  
__by our hammering hearts. What **are **you?_

There you go. And now, back to the story.

**Please note: **The title of this chapter has changed, because I finally found a suitable replacement to "fille", which was originally (incorrectly) used here in the possessive. Thanks to Cathy, Jessica and Lizou for their help in hunting down suitable historically correct terms!

* * *

**Chapter 24 – _L'amourette du Fantôme_**

Jean reached for the bottle of absinthe on the table and refilled Erik's glass, then Louise's and finally his own. His grave manner gave this the weight of a religious ceremony conducted in the cluttered store-room, by the dusty sunlight streaming through the half-open back door. The afternoon breeze wafting in seemed to carry with it the unidentifiable smell of poverty which always clung to Montmartre, but was particularly angry and bruised today, following the announcement of the new Assembly, composed entirely of right-wing imperialists.

"To France. She will survive this black day." Jean drank, wincing, and Louise tossed hers back as if it was poison.

Erik did not touch his glass. He could not believe he was still here. He and the Gandons were sitting around Jean's sign-writing table, on the same damned crates with which he had interrupted their meeting two nights earlier, the same ones that Christine had fallen against. Erik tried not to remember the terror in Christine's shadowed face when he had crashed down beside her, and everything that had come afterwards...

He raised his glass sharply, and gulped the vile stuff down. He longed to be gone from this room and this city, but yesterday's crowds had prevented even Monsieur Duchamp from opening the office, and Erik had felt an inexplicable reluctance to depart Paris without settling matters with him. This morning, while the new Assembly was being sworn in, he had gone to the office, thrown the Fiaux projects on Duchamp's desk and at last obtained the required paperwork for the languishing work on his courthouse.

It had been an ugly day, and Erik had no interest in continuing its ugliness with pointless drinking to an equally pointless cause. He would not have been here at all had Louise not pressed him into joining them while the store was shut for dinner. There were still several hours before the Sedan train, and it had seemed easier to accept than to explain that what he really wished was that Louise Gandon, her house, her politics, her store, and the rest of Paris would go to Hell in a small and uncomfortable handcart.

Jean moved to refill his glass; Erik did not prevent him, but did not drink. He saw Jean cast a questioning look in Louise's direction, and her answering nod – and finally understood why they had insisted on his company.

"There are several of us meeting tonight to discuss things, Andersson." Jean set down the bottle, sending a toxic whiff of something herbal in Erik's direction. "You might like to come. We can always use a clever man who knows what they're saying down in Paris."

Two days ago, Erik reflected, this offer would have pleased him. Today, he could not have cared less. "I'm afraid I have a train to catch this evening, but I trust you can get by without me."

"You've really made up your mind to leave Paris, then?" To Erik's surprise, Jean sounded genuinely sorry.

"I have."

"Well. Perhaps another time."

"A last drink," Louise decided. She raised her glass, nodding at Jean. "Then you'd best open up before the customers are hammering on the shutters."

Their glasses flashed green in the light; then Jean set down his and turned to Erik. "I'll leave the new _Lanterne_ out the front."

"My thanks." Erik rose for the obligatory handshake and farewell, assuring Jean that he would of course continue to read the _Lanterne_ as closely as ever while out of town. He chose not to mention that for the denizens of Sedan, including its architect, political awareness was not a priority.

Jean went out to re-open the store. Before Erik could extricate himself from Louise's company as well, she clapped her hand to the tabletop, making the glasses clank.

"Right. About the girl."

Erik halted. Louise was glaring up at him from her crate, eyes bloodshot from the drink but her gaze razor-sharp. Under the bandage, Erik's face tensed. He had to force his voice to remain low. "She is no concern of yours."

"Nor anyone else's, obviously. For pity's sake, sit _down_."

Erik remained standing. "I am rather in a hurry."

"For your evening train? I bet." Louise lumbered to her feet, pushing her kerchief back over her hair and assuming a determined expression. "Look here: if a pretty bed-warmer is what you're after, you find yourself a good sturdy working-class girl and have your fun. But that little creature from the Opéra is a different sort. You leave her alone and she won't last a week."

"Madame," Erik said coldly, "You may recall I once asked you not to discuss Mademoiselle Daaé. I do not like to have to ask again. Now, if you'll permit me to take my leave—"

Louise gave an impatient snort, like a horse badly harnessed. "You ass. She looks at you like you're Christ transfigured, the Devil knows why! Now you've taken her for a tumble, she'll fancy herself in love, I know her kind – all dewy skin and great big eyes, then one day a man comes along and there you have it: it's high tragedy, and she's a wasted old maid at twenty-five!"

Erik's eyes felt suddenly hot and it was painful to swallow. He wished he had been born tone-deaf and without a voice. "Mademoiselle Daaé will find a suitable husband when she wishes to."

"Well, isn't that noble! And was that what you were thinking two nights ago when the bed was doing a jig over my head? Suitable husband! You don't just take her like she's a laundress, you great fool. A girl like that wants fine dresses and a wedding, and what'd you leave her? Here I thought your Opéra 'demoiselle was one of them actress-women, a vixen, knows a thing or two – not a dirty little mouse, all tears and snot, with a lover who stands here telling me she'll find herself a husband! She'll melt like a candle the moment you've gone."

Erik picked up his hat off the nearby crate, dusting it off to conceal the shaking in his hands. It was intolerable to listen to this woman speak about Christine. He should never have allowed this to happen, should have left Paris the moment Christine was gone. Louise Gandon knew nothing of Christine's life or his; she understood nothing. He did not want to harm her. He just wanted to leave. "If you are quite finished?"

Louise looked him up and down, taking in his travelling clothes. She made a grimace of distaste. "That girl is best off without you."

"You are quite right. She is." Erik put on his hat, located his gloves and put on those as well. "Good day to you, Madame Gandon. A pleasure to have met you."

"Pah!" spat Louise. It was a sound of such revulsion that for a moment Erik thought his mask had slipped. He grabbed at it, but it the bandage was firmly in place.

"I told Jean, I said, we'd do well to have him on our side. He's a brave man, made a better scene at the Opéra than any of us could've done. That's what I told him. Pah!" she spun around to the door leading to the shop, and slammed it shut behind her.

Erik heard her clomping away into the store. There was a heavy pressure in his chest that was not anger; it seemed to go with the moisture seeping uncontrollably from his right eye into his damaged side. He stood there for a moment, then picked up his travel-case, newly bought and still smelling of glue, and walked out.

He did not realise until after the cab had turned down the Boulevard Montmartre that he intended to stop there.

"The _Variétés_, monsieur," the driver called from his box, as if Erik needed to be told.

"Yes. Right here."

o o o

Christine almost tripped over the little boy who tugged at her skirts in the noisy corridor, when she and Meg came out of the ballet dressing-room to go home after the matinee.

"Please, mademoiselle, are you Christine Daaé? I have a message for you." He dragged his cap off his blonde head, looking awestruck by the backstage chaos and the exotically painted people darting around them in the corridor.

Christine frowned. "Yes... What message?"

"There's a fancy gentleman outside wants to talk to you."

Christine glanced at Meg's puzzled expression – then brightened: Raoul! She had not heard from him at all since the end of their engagement. She could not blame him for needing this silence, after what she had done. Yet, fairly or not, she had missed his friendship, longed to know what was happening in his life. Almost at once, hope became a nervous knot in her stomach. What would she say to him?

"Mademoiselle?" The boy was waiting, kneading his cap in his small hands.

Christine turned to Meg. "You have to come with me! It's Raoul..."

Meg squeezed her hand, understanding. "Lead the way, monsieur," she said gravely to the boy, who blushed a vivid radish colour all the way to his hairline, as though paid a deep compliment.

Twisting on his heel, he made for the exit and Christine and Meg followed close behind. A group of chattering ballerinas swept up behind them when they rounded the corner. The group was smaller than usual, Christine noted, wondering at the absence of a few familiar faces.

Helena Weiss hooked her elbow through Meg's, grinning. "What's the hurry? Are you not coming to the _Café Anglaise_?"

"I can't—" Meg began.

"You two are always so serious!" Blanche pouted, her tiny pink mouth becoming no bigger than a child's. "Come along, girls, they're off to the Bourse tonight to watch for war news or something."

"Blanche." Helena's rebuke silenced the laughter for only a moment. "Will you come, later?" she asked Meg, more quietly.

"Later," Meg agreed, and much to Christine's relief Helena and the others continued on their way, resuming their chatter.

"Lighten up, _amourette du Fantôme_," Blanche winked at Christine in passing – but instead of the usual sting of anxiety, Christine felt an unexpected relief. Nothing had changed. Nothing at all.

They followed the errand boy out the side entrance to the street. Several carriages were still waiting at the kerb, but people were few; the performance had finished some time ago, and most theatre patrons were long gone. The warm afternoon breeze was a welcome change after the stuffy theatre and Christine inhaled a deep breath, searching apprehensively for any sign of Raoul's carriage.

"Over here," the boy caught their attention, pointing, before dashing off out of sight to find new errands.

Christine's only warning was a faint exclamation from Meg. She stared at the occupant of the cab in front of her, her skin prickling.

"A fancy gentleman..." she echoed the boy's words with an inflexion she herself could not recognise. Perhaps she was glad to see him. Perhaps.

"You don't have to." Meg gripped her wrist urgently. "You don't have to talk to him. We can just walk away."

Erik stepped down onto the pavement. He was dressed for travel, in boots and a light coat, and there was a sturdy case of some kind on the foot platform of the cab. He made a small bow to each of them in turn:

"Mademoiselle Daaé. Mademoiselle Giry. I am sorry I could not attend your performance this afternoon."

"You're leaving," said Christine, flatly.

She saw the tiniest movement of his cheek that could have been a wince, or nothing at all. "This evening; yes. I must return to work, but I had hoped to..." He trailed off. "I would like to say good-bye, mademoiselle. If I may."

Christine hesitated.

"Would you care to join me?" He indicated the cab. "Perhaps we could go for a walk. I will not keep you long."

"Christine..." Meg muttered, very quietly. "This isn't a good idea."

There was a glimpse of dread in Erik's eyes: he understood that Meg knew.

"Mademoiselle Giry." He addressed Meg, but continued looking at Christine. "I would be obliged if you let your mother know where Mademoiselle Daaé is."

He was silent long enough for Christine to recognise he was offering his life as security. He looked as tense as Christine had ever seen him. She wondered if he expected her just to walk away.

"Meg," she took a deep breath, "I will see you at home, soon. Before you leave for Helena's."

The concern did not leave Meg's face, but she nodded reluctantly. "All right."

Erik held out his arm for Christine. She hesitated another moment, then gave Meg a tense smile, and went to the cab.

She did not dare take Erik's arm. Awkwardly, her legs still sore from dancing, she climbed to the seat herself, settling down on the far side of the bench. Erik mounted the step after her. He left as much distance between them as the narrow bench allowed, but even so he was close, so close that Christine was aware of his warmth. She felt ambushed, confused by his sudden appearance. This man who belonged to her nights had burst through the fabric of her day, taking the place beside her that had belonged to Raoul... She glanced at Erik, but all she could see was his mask.

The reins tightened overhead at a word from the driver, and the horse trotted off. Warm air blew Christine's curls into her face.

"Where are we going?" She pushed her hair from her eyes, wishing Erik would turn around so she could read his expression. Meg was still watching them from the pavement as the cab turned into the boulevard, joining the rest of the wheeled traffic.

"The cemetery."

Christine's heart gave a thump. "That isn't funny."

"No. I would be concerned for your sense of humour if you found it so."

"Why are you taking me there?" She tried not to panic. Erik's mask was as impassive as his voice.

"It is nearby and the grounds are beautiful. We can walk."

"Around the cemetery!"

Erik half-turned to face her, and Christine saw the tension was still there, in his eyes. "If you would like to stop, you need only call to the driver."

Christine glanced around; the ornate façades of the Boulevard Montmartre were falling back quickly. Despite the crowds of people everywhere, strolling, riding in carriages, chatting and eating at the outside café tables, nobody spared their cab a second look. She felt at once invisible and exposed.

This was ridiculous, Christine decided. She could not fear Erik. She would not.

"All right. The cemetery, then."

He turned away again, apparently satisfied.

_They call me 'l'amourette du Fantôme' at the theatre_, she wanted to tell him, but didn't. She wondered whether he really was going back to work, and whether it was anywhere near the war. In recent days the front seemed to have moved away from the Belgian border, but the papers contradicted one another and it was impossible to discover what was happening. Perhaps he was going somewhere else entirely... She had no answers, even now.

They travelled the rest of the way to the Montmartre cemetery in silence. Every time the cab slowed to allow other traffic to pass, Christine half-expected to see a _gendarme_ or hear a passerby shrieking, but nothing happened. Gradually, her heartbeat slowed down, and she found herself growing accustomed to the notion of sharing a cab-seat with Erik, of driving with him in broad daylight through the bustle of Paris.

The cab passed through the cemetery gate, jolting over the uneven paving-stones, and rumbled down the wide leafy alley between the oldest of the graves. The tree canopies above them scattered the afternoon sunlight over the pathway, and birds called to one another intermittently, clear and very high. Christine could almost believe this strange outing was nothing more than a carriage-ride in the Bois de Boulogne.

"The next left," Erik called to the driver when they passed Adolphe Adam's grave. "At the end of the _rue_."

Christine turned sharply at the familiar directions. "Erik, not there. I don't want to talk with you there."

Erik locked his gloved fingers together, staring ahead. "It will only take a minute, Christine."

His voice lingered for the briefest moment on her name, and Christine felt a small shameful thrill at hearing him say it. She remembered his whispers against her skin in the night, and had to look away.

They dismounted near the entrance to what she had once thought of as the Angels' Garden, when she had been young and Madame Giry would bring her here to pay respects to her father. Now that she was older she could see it was not really a garden, but only a fenced-off block of cemetery land owned by the Opéra, where several of the performers were buried. The graves and crypts were half-hidden by trees, and among them stood figures of angels with wings folded, bowing their heads under veils of white marble.

"Wait here," Erik directed the cab driver, who shrugged indifferently in agreement. Erik held the gate open for Christine.

She shook her head, perturbed. "My father's grave?"

"Would you rather visit Piangi's?" He nodded at a crypt on their right near the fence, with a massive wreath of slightly wilted pink roses.

"I would rather not visit either!" Christine flared. "Erik, this place is – it's special, it means something to me..."

"I know." Something in the way he said it made Christine fall silent. He did know. He had not brought her here to torment her with the grave of Piangi, a man he had murdered; he did not like being here. This was something else.

Christine stepped through the gate into the garden. It was shady under the trees, cooler than the path. She had not been here in a long time. Guiltily, she noticed the fresh flowers in stone vases at some of the graves. Her own father's crypt stood grey and bare, the steps unswept, as a wordless rebuke to a daughter who could not face the ugly memories she might encounter here. There were too many of those, crowding her mind: the clash of swords; Raoul's blood dripping in the snow; and a strange light beckoning to her from within the tomb, luring her away from the world, seeking to break her will.

Erik did not stop when they reached her father's crypt, but continued up the steps towards the tomb itself. He turned around when he saw Christine was not following.

"Come. There is something you must see."

She looked up at him uncertainly, biting her lip. His figure was dark against the pale stone and the breeze lifted the edges of his coat, so that the whole effect was disconcertingly theatrical. She recalled Madame Giry saying, _he has been too long a ghost_. Perhaps that was true. Steeling herself, Christine went up the steps after him.

A wrought-iron grate covered the entrance to the tomb. Erik gave it a hard push and the grate swung inward with a long thin cry.

"Up there." He pointed to the lintel above their heads.

Christine frowned: it was dim inside the crypt, and she had trouble seeing anything but the dust on top of the open grate. Then she noticed it: a tiny pulley. The moment she realised what she was looking at, the entire mechanism popped into view, standing out from the black iron as if by magic. Twin pulleys were attached to the top of the door and the lintel, joined by a thin strong cord of catgut which looped over them and continued into the gloom within.

"There are air vents under the roof on the side," Erik indicated the wall to their right. "I cannot imagine their intended purpose in a crypt, but nevertheless there they are; you may satisfy yourself as to their location if you wish. The rope leads out through them."

Christine looked at the pulleys, at the whole silly rig. She could not tell if she felt more angry or stupid. "And the light in the niche?"

"A lamp inside," Erik admitted. "I fed the lit taper through the same vents."

"It looked like magic."

Erik studied the tomb intently, his shoulders stiffening. "It was intended to. You had to believe it was real."

"I did, Erik. I always believed you."

Christine left him and went around to the side of the tomb, finding the air vents in the wall. She would never have noticed it had she not known to look for it, but there was the end of the cord, knotted around a metal protrusion from a rough patch the masonry.

So simple. A clockwork trick desecrating the grave of her father.

"Erik, how long..?"

Christine started; he was right behind her.

"Enough of this."

Erik jerked the cord forcefully and it came off the metal bolt, snaking back inside the tomb. He vanished around the corner and a second later there was the sound of brackets giving way. Christine rushed back and saw him breaking off the last of the pulleys, crushing them with such explosive, manic violence that it looked almost like an act of revenge.

Erik bundled the broken pulleys together with the catgut into his hands, and offered the tangle to her. "An angel's wings." His voice was harsh with irony. "There, keep it."

The wooden wheels spun madly in his wide palm, like beetles turned on their backs. Repelled, Christine stepped aside. "I don't want it. Throw it away."

Erik closed his hand slowly. Then with a sudden twist of his arm, he threw the tangle sideways, into a patch of shrubbery beyond the stairs. The string caught on a branch briefly, slipped and disappeared.

Christine looked back from his empty hand, to his eyes. Erik met her gaze unwillingly and with a sudden clarity she understood what he was trying to do. He wanted to give back to her the memory of her father.

Christine felt her chest expand painfully, her breathing growing shallow and quick as though she would cry, but she did not want to cry at all. There was sunlight on the wall of the tomb, patches of it dancing on the stairs and on her dress and on Erik's coat... The Angels' Garden was beautiful.

"Thank you..." she said, when she could speak.

Erik turned his face aside, his jaw setting. Christine saw the sun touch his bare cheek, and for an instant she trembled because the light seemed within him, calling to her – because he _could_ be like this.

When he looked back at her he was completely himself. "Let us return, Christine."

"Sing," she said abruptly. "Something, anything. Scales."

Erik studied her as though trying to find out the cause of her madness, but Christine saw the thirst in his eyes. "Scales?"

"You remember. Do-re-mi-fa-so..." She spoke the words, but they came out as a half-smile. She waited – and then Erik was singing.

His throat moved to shape the note, and it sprang fully formed from his lips and flew, soaring in freefall like a man launching himself off a precipice, gliding on thin air, indifferent to the inevitable death from the earth below. Not scales, not opera; it was a song Christine knew, a very old song she had once heard coming from the walls of the chapel in the Opéra.

Without thinking about it, she opened her mouth and then the harmony was there, entwining with the melody Erik showed her, while in her heart a child asked of a grey stone-faced wall: "Angel of Music, why do you cry?"

Erik stopped, and so did she. A verse, no more. Christine felt rest of the music become tangled again in her throat, all the unvoiced songs coiling like strings of a broken violin. She didn't care. She breathed as if she had been flying.

"Christine..." Erik spoke into the returning reality. A cemetery, the tomb of her father. They could leap from the precipice, but there was always the ground beneath. "We must go."

Christine smiled at him, just because she wanted to.

"Yes... In a moment."

Erik touched a lock of her hair where it lay against her arm. Christine watched, her heart knocking in her chest, as he brushed his knuckles against the curl, barely disturbing it. There were calluses on his thumb and his index finger from holding a pencil, and a smudge of charcoal under a nail – no blood. Then he took his hand away.

They walked down the steps side-by-side into the shaded garden, strolling slowly between the trees and graves, back towards the waiting cab.

It was not enough, Christine thought wistfully. In another world, perhaps, there were two people who looked exactly like them, save that one was not a murderer, and the other had never raised her voice before a wall in prayer to a made-up angel. She could sing by herself in that other world, and Erik could find freedom from the darkness tainting his mind, and then they could touch willingly, as lovers.

"Erik? Do you think there are other worlds?"

He stopped just inside the open gate of the garden, on the edge between shadow and sun. Her question made him raise a brow. "There are millions of them, I'm sure. It is only our rotten luck to be condemned to this one."

"I think there is only this one. No angels, no demons. Only this."

"That is a sad philosophy," Erik said grimly. "I would hate to miss out on my share of the brimstone."

Christine smiled. She wondered what he would do if she asked him to stay. Then the moment was gone.

Erik offered her his arm and she took hold of it lightly, thinking that perhaps there were other worlds hidden inside this one, worlds within worlds. They left the cemetery together.


	25. An Evening In The Country

Here it is, the horrendously delayed Chapter 25, a.k.a. proof that the author is still breathing. I would love to promise to update regularly from now on, but unfortunately I am still working on my thesis, and will be doing so until late March or a nervous breakdown, whichever comes first. So, please be patient with me – and if you are still reading, please leave a review, you'll make my day!

**Trivia for this chapter:** A bit of historical background, for those of you who are interested in such things. Towards the end of August 1870, France had two armies, both of which were in serious trouble. The first, under the command of Marshal Bazaine, was hopelessly besieged in the fortress of Metz. The second, Marshal MacMahon's Army of Châlons, was hastily brought up to strength with a bunch of new recruits and half-baked officers, and sent off to try to break the siege. MacMahon's army, in total disarray, was in no fit state for such a manoeuvre. Meanwhile, the Prussians were closing in.

**A quick reminder: When last we saw our characters, Raoul was heading off to the army, and Christine and Erik had just visited her father's grave, before Erik left Paris.**

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**Chapter 25 – An Evening In The Country**

Night was falling fast. The tiny town of Le Chêne was uneasy, filled as it was with officers and surrounded by army tents as far as the eye could see. The 12th corps had been camped there through most of the day, having roused the town from its sleepy life with the tremendous confusion of arriving officers and orderlies, foot soldiers, cavalrymen, gun layers, artillery wagons and, as a the centrepiece of this chaos, the baggage train of the Emperor Napoleon III, who was still accompanying the army despite having officially relinquished command.

The townsfolk had of course opened their houses to the officers, but the illusion of welcome was wearing thin. Raoul saw the way their eyes tracked the soldiers sullenly, heard their muttering in the streets. The army would not remain to defend them, they said, but would march onward in the morning, retreating further and further north and abandoning them to the Prussians.

"What will happen to us?" women kept asking him, just as they asked the others, catching his sleeve, looking into his face with despairing eyes.

Raoul was forced to admit that he did not know, that it rested with the superior officers and he was only a sub-lieutenant. Each time he said it, he felt the betrayal in their eyes like a slap across the face. It was one thing to be useless in Paris. To be useless out here, worse, to know himself to be just one more untrained officer among so many others – that was maddening. He had held few illusions about the army after the reports he had studied in Paris, but he had thought that somehow, being here would be better than watching it from afar, that somehow he could take a rifle in his hands and stand with those who would drive the Prussians back over the border.

Well, he had his rifle. He even knew he was a good shot with it – unlike some of the green recruits who had never before seen a breech-loader – thanks to his father's involvement in provisioning the army. At the time, Raoul had thought that using a _châssepot_ for hunting fowl was ridiculous, but right now he was glad to have had the practice. Yet no amount of practice would do him any good, when they had not so much as caught wind of the Prussians in the two weeks since he joined the regiment in Châlons. All they seemed to do was march endlessly across the countryside, trudging across chalky plains, fields, mud, often going for days with no more food than potatoes and coffee when the supply train was lost or delayed. The physical strain of those marches, the nightmarish days when Raoul thought he would die before reaching camp – all that would have been bearable had there been something to march towards, a confrontation, a fight. But the enemy eluded them.

Raoul knew he was not alone in his frustration. The other officers and the men had grown increasingly restless, especially after yesterday, when news had come that the Prussians were massing at Vouziers, offering battle. They had marched at the double, rushing gladly to face at last these phantom enemies. Yet here they were at Le Chêne, a stone's throw from Vouziers, and there had been no sign of the Prussians anywhere in the area. They had ended up spending the entire day in camp, waiting for nothing, until in the afternoon a telegram arrived, saying that the forces of the Crown Prince of Prussia were at Châlons, catching them in a pincer between two armies. There was no choice. Even with the limited knowledge of tactics Raoul recalled from his schooldays, it was obvious what the marshal's decision would be. They would have to retreat.

How, Raoul wondered, could he look the people of Le Chêne in the eye and tell them that?

He did not meet the gaze of any of the passers-by as he walked. On the corner of the town square and the Vouziers road, an entire house had been commandeered for the Emperor and his entourage. Several officers loitered outside, hoping to catch some news from the aides-de-camp who came and went through the open front doors. Raoul joined them.

"Take a look at that!" Cloutier, another lieutenant, a tall broad-shouldered man with the bearing of an old soldier, said by way of greeting. He flicked a cigarette end in the direction of the Emperor's brightly lit lodgings. "Cooking up a storm, while we've been down to marching rations for three days."

Behind the rain-spattered windows of the kitchen, Raoul could see three chefs hard at work on the Emperor's supper. The upper windowpanes were open, and the escaping steam clouded the evening air with smells of roast chicken and the faintest suggestion of melting butter. A fleeting image brushed Raoul's memory, of a café in Paris and Christine taking a seat at their table... He turned away from the house.

"He is the Emperor. In any case, we have been waiting here the whole day. The supply vans cannot be far now."

"Save your optimism for the men, Chagny. Chances are, we'll be gone tomorrow before they even know where to send the baggage. Another day of marching rations for us." Cloutier released a cloud of bitter smoke from his stinking cigarette, grimaced and tossed it into the mud. "Ugh. Half tobacco, half cow-pat. Can't buy anything in this godforsaken town."

Raoul fished in the inside pocket of his coat and tossed him the wrapped packet. "Here. Left over from Paris."

Cloutier took the tobacco pouch from Raoul, shook some out, and rolled the cigarette between his blunt fingers. He lit up, nearly choking in surprise: "This is _good_! How is it you haven't polished it off yourself?"

"I am not much of a smoker."

"Not much of a smoker, not much of a drinker – what the hell are you doing here?"

Raoul gave a bitter shrug. "Walking up a healthy appetite, same as you. Back and forth until we get to Paris and find the Prussians are there already."

Cloutier humphed into his moustache, in agreement. "They've made a fine mess of things here, that's for certain."

A young aide-de-camp rushed out of the Emperor's house, heading for the Hôtel de Ville. Raoul hailed him as he passed by. "Any news?"

"A general retreat," the aide said tersely. "The marshal has sent a wire to Paris to let them know."

"It's done then. We're falling back." Cloutier gave a resigned sigh, breathing a cloud of smoke.

"Yes, to the Northern fortresses. The artillery is going out in an hour or so, to give them a head start. Excuse me."

Raoul stepped aside, adding his nod of thanks to Cloutier's as the young man continued on his way. So the retreat would continue; they would go on marching without a battle in sight, as though this was not a war but the migration of a horde of half-starved men... Raoul was suddenly aware of just how tired he felt, and how futile this whole escapade was. Tomorrow, there would again be no food; tomorrow the raw blood blisters on his feet that had begun to heal after a day's rest would open up again. Tomorrow, they would be running away from the Prussians... And he was so sick of running away.

"I shall see you in the morning, Cloutier."

He waited for the soldier to acknowledge his departure, then turned around and walked briskly across the square, towards the house where he had been given lodging. Only now did Raoul realise that it had grown completely dark. Around the square, many of the windows glowed gold, but their poor lamps could not dispel the peculiar, unnatural blackness that was the night in a small town, so different from Paris. Groups of other officers hurried past him, towards the Emperor's house or away from it. Raoul crossed the stone bridge over the canal that split the town square diagonally in half, then turned into a narrow street that ran out to the edge of town. The rain was starting again; the water shivered with goosebumps, and the thin slick of dirt on the paving stones was deepening to ankle-deep mud that sucked at his boots.

When he reached the house, Raoul lingered outside for a moment, despite the rain. There was a narrow gap between the buildings at this end of the street, and beyond it he could see the ground fall away, paving-stones yielding to grass. He was almost grateful to the light rain for breaking the eerie silence of this place. Ahead lay the vast empty fields, an infinite nothing. After a while, he could distinguish the faint edges of the army tents. They rose out of the rain like an armada of ghostly sails, and Raoul was reminded of the harbour in Perros-Guirec, of a rainy evening many years ago and a boy and girl racing headlong along the pebbled beach, out towards the cold, beautiful sea.

The twenty-seventh of August... Tonight was exactly a year since he had become the patron of the Opéra Populaire.

Raoul shook himself and went to the house where he was staying. The maid, a thin girl huddling into her shawl, admitted him and led him upstairs, raising her lamp before her to light the way. Although it was scarcely nine in the evening, people seemed to retire to bed early in the country, and the house was already quiet and dark. The girl lit a lamp on the bedside table for Raoul and replaced the glass chimney over the flame. The second wick flared, brightening the neat little room.

"Will you be needing anything else, monsieur?"

Raoul had started to say no, then changed his mind. "Yes. Paper and ink, if I may."

The girl bobbed her head, returning a moment later with a stack of writing paper, an inkwell and two pens. Raoul thanked her and she left, closing the door behind her.

Raoul got rid of his officers' cap, gloves and boots, then took the lamp and writing implements over to the heavy desk that stood by the wall near the window. He shrugged out of his wet jacket, hanging it over the back of the chair. A chill draught blew underneath the window-frame, rustling the paper and heralding autumn. Raoul moved the inkwell to hold down the pages, then dipped his pen.

_My dear Mademoiselle Daaé,.. _He paused, then went on: _my dear friend_. _I hope I may still be permitted to call you that. I beg you to forgive my long silence— _

He thrust the pen back into the holder, and sat back in the chair, running his hands over his face. Everything he could think of to say to 'Mademoiselle Daaé' sounded either accusing or presumptuous. Could he call Christine a friend? Could he ask her if she was well, if she was still dancing, if there had been any more sightings of the Phantom – if she was safe? Could he ask if she was happy?

It was impossible. He could not write to her. Hating his cowardice, Raoul took a clean sheet of paper and started again:

_Dear Madame Giry,_

_I hope this letter finds you in good health, and likewise Mlles Giry and Daaé..._

He scribbled the rest of the uncomfortable missive as quickly as he could. At least the post still worked, despite the chaos of troop movements. The letter would leave Le Chêne with the morning post and perhaps reach Paris in the next day or two, although Raoul could not be certain how long it would take for any reply to find him. If the retreat went well, perhaps a few days from now he would be walled up in some fortress in the North... And in the meantime, the Prussians would have occupied this town and dozens of others.

Raoul folded and sealed the letter, then took out the tobacco pouch from his jacket on the chair and walked around the desk to the window. He opened it and stood smoking in the cold air, studying the dark.

o o o

"I'm telling you, we must leave! Pauline, are you listening!"

Erik halted in the doorway. The maid who had opened the door for him glanced up towards the stairs, where Monsieur Egrot's yells were coming from. Their house in Bazeilles had not changed a bit since Erik had been here over a month ago; there were still the same carefully tended plants in the window-boxes outside, the same comfortable, lived-in furniture and old watercolours on the walls. He had arrived here looking forward to resuming the acquaintance with Egrot, particularly because he was in need of a clerk to manage the courthouse project. He had even let the coachman go, certain of a welcome... How stupid of him. Beyond the entrance hall, the empty parlour was lit with an achingly familiar warmth.

"Pauline! Open that door!" There was the sound of a doorknob being rattled.

The house may not have changed, Erik concluded, but the owners clearly had.

"I'm so sorry, Monsieur Andersson," the maid babbled, her plump cheeks turning colours on her masters' behalf. "It's just – a bad time, that is... If you would wait, I'm sure..."

Erik was already leaving. "Kindly convey my regards to Monsieur Egrot, and commend him on his vocal range. _Bon soir_."

The girl looked on the verge of tears as she shut the door behind him. Erik wondered how long this concert had been going on. He picked up his portfolio and strode back along the garden path towards the Sedan road. From an open window upstairs, the sounds of a woman crying carried down to him on the evening breeze. Erik's skin crawled with disgust, as though he had reached for a handshake and instead encountered something rotten. A domestic quarrel was not what he had expected to find here.

He reached the road and resigned himself to the long walk back to Sedan. The night was clear and moonless, and once he had left Bazeilles behind, he found he could put the Egrots from his mind. Insects chirred in the hedges, falling silent at his approach, then resuming their noise. Ahead, Erik could see nothing but the stars and the ghostly, uneven surface of the road. He shifted the portfolio in his hand.

He did not need Egrot, he decided. He would find a foreman for the construction site and manage the paperwork himself. If they thought him crazy at the mayor's office for insisting to begin construction at a time when everyone else was obsessed with the war, then so much the better. He would be the eccentric architect from Paris and perhaps even his bandaged face could be simply part of his 'charm'.

Unwillingly, Erik reached up and adjusted the bandage. It was chafing at the hot, deformed skin again and making it itch, and the padding had grown damp and unbearable. A dangerous idea seized him. He looked back over his shoulder. The road was completely dark and silent, save for the sounds of insects and the crunch of stones under his own feet. There was no sign of any human presence. Setting the portfolio down briefly, Erik untied the bandage, took a breath, then before he could change his mind, slipped the thing off. The breeze was a sudden cold blast on his scars, then the shock dissolved into a vague, guilty pleasure. He stuck the bandage in his coat pocket and resumed his walk, trying to ignore the clamour of sensations on his face, trying not to think of Christine touching him there...

He gave up. The night was too dark and lonely to divulge his secrets, and there was nothing to stop him from exploring the memory of Christine's hands, of her mouth, her voice when he had dared to touch her – so surprised... He did not have to think of how he had hurt her, not now. She had smiled at him in the cemetery. She had smiled at him.

In the safety of this night, he could unfurl all his impossible fantasies and look at them as at a priceless, stolen tapestry. He would return to Paris, a successful architect, and court Christine all over again, with flowers and music...

"Andersson!"

"_Merde!_" Erik threw down the portfolio to catch at his face. His heart slammed into his head. He thrust his hand into his pocket, turning his back to the road and grasping for the bandage.

The carriage stopped, someone jumped out and Erik heard hurried footsteps, unmistakably Egrot's. "Wait a moment, won't you? It was about the war, you see!"

It was too late. Egrot's hand landed on his shoulder. "Blast it, Andersson, I am sorry you had to... Oh. Oh – my God."

Erik shut his eyes.

o o o

Somebody was knocking on the door. Raoul concluded this with relief, feeling the dream unravel like a rope and slip harmlessly away. Where had he been? Perros-Guirec, a beach... Christine, no longer a child, walking slowly through the cold water towards him – no, towards another man – and he, standing still as only happens in nightmares, powerless even to cry out as Christine kisses the murderer right before his eyes, her small hands cradling his face – she is saving them both, because he is useless, he can't move...

Raoul sat up. His damp shirt stuck to his body and he shivered in the draught from the window, still tasting the foul water from the cellars. Somebody was knocking on the door. The dream that was no dream slipped away, leaving behind only the sense of despair, the awful helplessness of it. He swung himself off the bed and reached for his boots and jacket, trying to wake up completely. The clock on the wall showed four in the morning.

He splashed some water on his face from the ewer on the washstand, and managed to get the door.

An aide-de-camp stood there, flanked by a maid who looked as sleep-rumpled and confused as Raoul felt. Was there a rumbling outside? Oh, he recalled, the retreat. Of course, they are moving the artillery.

"The retreat is off," the young man said. "Orders are to report back to camp immediately; we're moving on to La Besace first thing. The 1st will be coming through there."

The last vestiges of heavy sleep dissolved. Raoul stared at the aide. "But the Crown Prince's army at Châlons – the pincer." He frowned. "The march is back on?"

The aide gave a single sharp nod. Raoul realised the boy was terrified. "The marshal had a wire from Paris, from the Empress and Count de Palikao. We've been ordered to forget the retreat and keep advancing, an all-out march to meet the Prussians."

"But..." Raoul began, and then understood: "They're afraid of a revolution. They're afraid of what Paris will do if we retreat."

He glanced at the sealed letter on the table, the letter he had not dared to address to Christine. He knew he ought to be terrified, but the fierce emotion he felt surprised even him. "We're going to battle."


	26. The Birds They Put In Cages

Thank you so much for your patience, guys! For those who asked, my thesis is in Molecular Phytopathology, which sadly has nothing whatsoever to do with 19th century Paris. The thesis saga is continuing, so updates are still irregular – but at least this is a nice long chapter for you! The title comes from a song from the wonderful 1998 French musical, "Notre Dame de Paris" (highly recommended!):  
_Les oiseaux qu'on met en cage  
Peuvent-ils encore voler?  
Les enfants que l'on outrage  
Peuvent-ils encore aimer?_

Translation, adapted from the official English version:  
_Could the birds they put in cages  
Ever ride upon the wind?  
Could the children life has injured  
Ever learn to love again?_

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**Chapter 26 – The Birds They Put In Cages**

Erik clutched his mask to his face, his eyes shut. His ears were ringing with the sound of gypsy coins. Egrot's hand dropped from his shoulder.

"My God," the man said again. And then, "That doesn't look so good."

Erik swore and twisted aside to fix his bandage. He yanked the knot tight and straightened up, the bandage gripping his skull like a vice. Egrot's curiosity burned so bright Erik would have sworn he could see the man's crimson face and glittering eyes in the darkness of the roadside.

"It was a hunting accident," Erik threw savagely, in a low voice. He could practically feel Egrot strain to catch the words.

"Good God! What were you hunting?"

"I was not hunting. I was the prey."

He watched the thoughts chase one another across Egrot's round face like changing backdrops: a hunt in the woods, a nobleman's rifle, a stray bullet, a terrible accident, oh the humanity... _Bravo_, he seethed at himself. A tale fit for an opera libretto.

"Andersson..."

Erik picked up his portfolio. Egrot caught his arm; Erik thrust him off, incensed, yet Egrot's next words were a surprise:

"I was glad to hear from you again. After the way you departed last time, I was not sure – but that's in the past." He flung his hand wide: "Come, my friend, Madame Egrot will have my hide if I don't bring you back in time for supper."

"Supper." Erik looked from Egrot to the carriage behind him, then back to Egrot. Then at the carriage. The coachman gave an elaborate stretch on his box-seat, pretending he was not eavesdropping.

"Roast beef and an excellent red from the cellar. No fish, I swear it." Egrot beamed for all the world as if the ludicrous tale of stray bullets had somehow cemented their friendship.

The edges of Erik's vision spun and wavered dangerously. This man had seen him without his mask. This man – this man was alive – was offering him a supper invitation. _Christine_, he shaped the word like a man crossing himself.

Egrot cleared his throat. "Look, I'm dreadfully sorry about all that nonsense earlier, but you must come back with me. I absolutely insist on it."

As if on cue, the coachman popped down off the box and held open the door. There was a long pause. Then Erik stepped forward and walked towards the carriage as in a dream, a nightmare of a cage. _Come, come inside... Come and see the Devil's Child._

If it is a trap, he thought, I'll kill him.

But he would not. Erik knew this as clearly as if he had heard Christine say it. He mounted the steps of the carriage and sat down, took off his hat and placed it carefully on the worn upholstery of Egrot's ancient conveyance. Egrot heaved himself into the seat opposite and shut the door. The horse whinnied; the springs cried out; the wheels skidded on the gravel, then turned. The moment of death had flashed past, as if he had glanced away from the window of a train and missed it.

"So." Egrot clapped his hands to his pudgy knees. "What are they saying in Paris? It's true, isn't it: the army is on its way here?"

Erik leaned into his seat. The back of his shirt was soaked through. He locked his hands together and felt the pulse between his fingers: beating, fluttering life.

"I don't give a damn about the war, Egrot," he said pleasantly. "I am here to build a courthouse."

"But, the army – the Prussians! Now wait, Andersson. You can't mean to remain here."

"Can't I."

Egrot groaned, "Not you as well! My wife has family in Bordeaux, but she is determined not to move from the house. It is insanity, you must help me convince her! Towns are being looted from here right to the border, all those soldiers needing supplies... Our men, the Prussians. If they pass through here, we'll have nothing left!"

"No," Erik said simply.

Egrot stared at him with frank disbelief. Then, quite suddenly, his expression changed. "A hunting accident, you say."

Erik's silence lasted only a heartbeat. "That's right."

"Because if you know how to shoot, perhaps I could – uh, ask your aid... If we are to remain here, we could at least protect ourselves from the looters."

Erik measured Egrot with a long look, taking in the man's flustered expression and the anxious way he was twisting his gloves. "You are asking for my help."

"You did say you were the one who had been shot, but I thought..."

Erik felt his mouth curve in the beginning of a hard smile. "My help does not come cheaply, Monsieur Egrot. But perhaps you will be willing to aid me in return?"

"Naturally, my friend, naturally! What is it you require?" Egrot looked so relieved, Erik could hardly believe his luck. Was a man's house really worth so much to him? Then again, he thought, he had had a home once, too. Of a sort. And it had been looted.

"I am in need of a clerk for the construction site, Egrot. And someone with local knowledge when it comes to recruiting labour."

Instead of looking annoyed, Egrot actually puffed up with delight. "I would be honoured! And in return, you will remain to help guard the house?"

"I will," said Erik. After all, he decided, the army would never come as far as Sedan anyway. Then before he could stop himself, he added, "I should be glad of some writing paper and ink later, if you would be so kind. There is a letter I would like to write."

o o o

Madame Giry put up the 'closed' sign on the ticket window and pulled out the account-keeping book to record the day's takings. Deep inside the _Théâtre Français_, the dull roar of applause marked the start of the night's performance. Even after all this time, Madame Giry noticed wryly, she still waited for the orchestra to launch into the overture. Old habits died hard.

At first, she had thought of this job as a temporary measure, only until the Opéra was rebuilt and everything and everyone returned to their place. Or almost everyone, if she dared to hope that Monsieur Duchamp's architect had truly left the Phantom behind. But instead of restoring the old building, the Emperor had commissioned a new one, and a project that might have taken a year now seemed set to last a decade. The war, of course, put a halt even to the work on that. There was no use dwelling on it. They all had to move on. Both Meg and Christine seemed to have taken well to the _Variétés_, even if their dancing was no longer strictly ballet, and in the few months since they had been living away from the theatre, both girls seemed to have grown up faster than Madame Giry would have believed possible. The Opéra had never been a good place for either of them; there were too many secrets and too much grief in its catacombs. And yet, Madame Giry admitted to herself, she had loved it. Even when the horrors had started, even when the disturbed child she had grieved for showed himself to be a man far more dangerous than she could have guessed. She had loved the Opéra all the same, as one loves a once-brilliant aunt who is growing old and losing her mind, dying a slow death.

It might have been nice if this dying aunt had left them some inheritance. However, the _Théâtre Français_ did pay enough to cover the rent, and the rest, as Meg had pointed out, would have to take care of itself.

Another round of applause reached the box-office, and Madame Giry gave the accounts book a wistful smile. She could not help expecting the music to start. She did miss the music.

She reached across from her chair to shut the door, but someone on the other side gave it a push.

"May I intrude?" Signoret, the managers' junior secretary, ducked his head into the tiny room. "A gentleman from the _Variétés_ is asking after you."

Madame Giry acknowledged him briefly, then returned to totting up the figures in the book. "I would be obliged if you could tell him to wait, monsieur. I will be there presently."

But he had already opened the door, to reveal a sharp-featured, angular man in an impeccable suit and kid gloves. "Camille Michaud," the gentleman introduced himself brusquely. "Secretary to Monsieur Offenbach. Forgive my abrupt intrusion, but I'm afraid I need to speak with you."

Madame Giry rose from her chair, resting her hand on the chair-back. "What is it about?"

"You were the ballet mistress for the Opéra?"

Madame Giry lifted her brows slightly. "You know that, monsieur, else you would not be here. This is about my daughter?"

"No, no," Camille Michaud reassured her. He looked uncomfortable. "It concerns another of the Opéra Populaire girls. A young lady by the name of Weiss."

Madame Giry glanced at the young secretary, who was still shadowing the doorway. "Thank you, Monsieur Signoret."

"Er, yes." He sketched a bow to Camille Michaud and retreated down the corridor. Madame Giry returned her attention to the gentleman.

"Helena Weiss," she prompted.

"That's right." Camille Michaud looked grave. "You are aware that her father is a Prussian?"

Madame Giry regarded him steadily. "It has not been my habit to investigate the parents of my students, monsieur."

"I see." Camille Michaud took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead, then sighed. "Come with me, if you will."

"Impossible. I must finish the accounts—"

"I'm afraid this is urgent. The girl is asking for you."

And there it was again. That irritable, slightly baffled expression of a manager with a crisis on his hands, demanding that she make it go away. How many times had Madame Giry seen it in her years at the Opéra? Enough that the response to it was instinctive, as much a reflex as expecting an overture after the applause:

"Of course." Her hands were already moving of their own accord to lock away the accounts ledger in the drawer. She shut the box-office door behind them.

Not ten minutes later, they were backstage at the _Variétés_. The corridors were quiet; too much so. Knowing how gossip flew through any theatre, this apparent indifference to whatever the trouble had been seemed peculiar, but Madame Giry set the thought aside for now. She followed Camille Michaud down a corridor she recognised as the way to the ballet dressing-room, from the few times she had been able to meet Meg and Christine here after their performances.

"Right here." He opened the door slightly for her, enough to be polite. "I shall be in my office upstairs. Thank you for your help, Madame Giry. If there is anything we can offer you..."

"Twenty thousand francs a month and a box on the grand tier," Madame Giry sighed. She waved off the secretary's blank look with an impatient gesture. "I shall find you if I need you, Monsieur Michaud."

"Very good." He touched his hat-brim and made his grateful escape towards the stairs.

Madame Giry took a moment to pin a stray lock of hair back into the coiled braid on her head. Then she opened the door, and walked briskly into the dressing-room.

"All right, mademoiselle," she said when she spotted the hunched figure in the corner, on one of the benches that ran the length of the far wall. The benches and the wooden floor were strewn with usual clutter of clothes, bits of ribbon, stockings and jars of greasepaint discarded by the other ballerinas on their way to the stage. "Would you be so good as to tell me what has happened?"

When Helena looked up, Madame Giry stopped still. The girl had been weeping, but that was not the cause of her red and swollen eyes, nor of the puffy left cheek across which white tracks slashed three curved lines. Somebody had raked their fingernails across her face, from the corner of her eyelid right to her mouth. The other eye was bloodshot and already half-closed; it took no great experience in such things to know that by tomorrow, it would be black and swollen shut.

"I stumbled, coming offstage... an accident," Helena managed, but when she saw Madame Giry's appalled expression, her courage seemed to crumble into a grimace. She hunched over again, hugging her stomach and pressing her forehead to her knees as if she was afraid she would fall apart. Hanks of her messy blonde hair hung down in wet points. It was not water in her hair, Madame Giry realised with a start. It was red and sticky, and as sickeningly familiar as an envelope sealed with a death's head, floating down from the rafters into her hands.

For an absurd moment, Madame Giry caught herself wondering in horror what the idiot boy in the basement could possibly have against this girl. Then it was over and she was here, and this young woman, whom not even the most strenuous rehearsal could ever drive to tears, was sobbing like a child. She still wore her leotard, and her shoulderblades protruded from her skinny back like half-buried knives.

"Helena. Look at me, my dear."

Helena complied, dragging the back of her hand across her mouth and nose. As gently as she could, Madame Giry put two fingers under her chin and tilted her ruined face up to the light. The blood had come from her nose, Madame Giry judged; her lips and teeth were pink with it. The fingernail tracks across her face told the story well enough. Her own girls had done this. Her own students.

"It happened here, in the dressing-room?"

Helena nodded against Madame Giry's hand. "They said my father was a spy."

Monsieur Weiss worked in Les Halles, delivering vegetables for the market – but ever since the news of the first Prussian victories, this spy-fever had been growing. Meg had mentioned that Helena's circle of friends had dwindled, and that a few girls gave her a hard time about having a Prussian father, but not in her wildest imaginings could Madame Giry have expected to see this, here. It happened in villages, in occupied towns... And here.

"You mustn't tell my parents, Madame Giry, please. If you say it was an accident, they must believe you. Please."

Madame Giry released the girl's face, promising her nothing. "Come, my dear, get up. You can walk?"

"Yes." Helena struggled to her feet, almost without Madame Giry's aid. "I'm sorry to be so much trouble. Madame Veilleux, our repetiteur, had already gone home, and Blanche and Meg and the others were only here for the matinee. I didn't know who else to call."

"It is no trouble. Come, you must get dressed."

When Helena was ready and Madame Giry had helped her fix her hair and clean up her face as best she could, they went out into the corridor.

"You won't make me talk to Monsieur Offenbach, will you?" Helena asked.

"No." There would be little point in asking Jacques Offenbach, himself a German, to take Helena's side in this. If the scandal got out to the papers, they would no doubt accuse him of being a Prussian sympathiser, and public opinion, fickle as ever, would have audiences snubbing his theatre within days. Besides, if Offenbach's secretary had brought her here, they already know what has happened. They would express sympathy and do nothing. No, Madame Giry decided, complaints to the management would not work.

They were nearly in the wings before Helena seemed to realise where they were going. Her eyes grew wide when she saw the line of dancers in their red-and-green peasant skirts, twirling onstage in front of a backdrop of village houses. Out of time, Madame Giry noted mechanically, and struggling to control their breathing.

"No, Madame Giry..."

Just then, the dance number ended, and the girls trooped off the stage quickly, farewelled by half-hearted applause. Ignoring Helena's protests, Madame Giry walked directly into their path, holding Helena by the elbow. The first girl stumbled to a halt; the others stopped so as not to cannon into her.

Madame Giry gave them a moment to admire their handiwork, then let go of Helena's arm. She looked at each girl in turn, long and hard. She knew exactly what they saw in her face, and she waited until even the _Variétés_ girls looked as uneasy as her former charges. "Those backdrops, mesdemoiselles. They look heavy."

Then she took Helena's arm again and led the girl through the stage doors towards the exit, leaving them all behind. For just a few breaths, she was fifteen again, and heartsick, while a crowd of ballet students around her laughed at a boy in a side-show cage.

She caught the crowded omnibus home, picked up the mail, and went upstairs. She was nearly at the door when she noticed the names on the two letters.

o o o

Christine brought the plates and cutlery from the kitchen and began to set the table for supper. Her own plate went on the right side of the table, and Meg's on the left, and Madame Giry's in her usual place with her back to the balcony. The curtain billowed lightly, brushing the chair, and that was excuse enough to move it aside and leave the window bare and open. The tiny balcony was empty. Upstairs, they were hosting a dinner party, and the still-light air of early evening was full of conversations, laughter, the smell of roast goose, and the chatter of the coach drivers below punctuated by enthusiastic off-key singing. No shadows waited for her. Christine fingered the fine fabric of the curtain, then drew it shut. Sometimes, she thought, when one is used to being watched all the time, the most difficult thing of all is freedom.

She was determined that it would get easier. Time was all she needed; Raoul had not believed her but it was true. Whether it was the madness of going to Erik's house that night, or the equal madness of his own visit to the _Variétés_ in broad daylight, something had driven out the frightened sleepwalking creature from her mind. Bit by bit, the rest of her was unfolding to fill up all that new space, stretching luxuriously like a thing uncaged.

"I am seventeen years old," Christine said to the empty room, and grinned at her own folly. There was a war going on somewhere, and everyone was afraid, and the papers were muttering that the army might have to retreat all the way to Paris. Workmen were packing up the paintings from the Louvre and sending them west to Le Havre, and cattle had been brought to graze in the once-elegant carriageways of the Bois de Boulogne. But she was seventeen years old, a girl like any other, and she was sick and tired of waiting for something magnificent and terrible to happen to her. Instead, she had started to visit her father's grave again, strange as the place was after her last encounter with Erik, and to accompany Madame Giry on her shopping trips. She had even gone with Meg and Helena the previous week to see if she too might be able to make some extra money, but the gentleman had said she was too skinny. In any case the place had made her nervous, and keeping one secret from Madame Giry was hard enough. One day, Christine promised herself, she would be strong enough to tell her about the night in Montmartre. But not yet.

She caught her reflection in the glass front of a cabinet, all dark curls and shadowed eyes, and only for a second did she imagine a masked man behind her shoulder. In the next instant he had dissolved into a flush of guilty pleasure under her skin, into hands skimming her hips and white light pouring onto a forbidden map. Christine coughed, and hurried out of the dining-room and into the kitchen.

The kettle went on the stove, the bread went into the basket, the ground coffee went into the coffee pot. Christine lit the gas and the blue flames licked at the kettle merrily. She had everything under control – but she nearly leapt from her skin when Madame Giry came into the kitchen.

Christine cringed mentally at the quizzical expression on Madame Giry's face. "I didn't hear you come in. I was just making coffee."

"Indeed," Madame Giry said soberly, "That would explain the coffee pot."

Christine gave her a half-embarrassed smile, and Madame Giry touched her cheek in greeting. "These came for you." She held out two envelopes, one of which had been opened.

"Letters?" Christine asked in surprise.

"This one was addressed to me, which is admirably proper, but I daresay you may write back to the young Vicomte yourself. The other," – Madame Giry shook her head slightly – "is not so polite. But I think you had best answer them both."

Christine found the treacherous blush creeping up her cheeks again, but mercifully Madame Giry made no comment. She took the letters. One was indeed addressed to Madame Giry, and sealed with the Chagny crest. The other was plain, and bore a return address in some place called Bazeilles. The sender's name was _M. Andersson_.

Madame Giry took pity on her. "Go on, my dear, I can prepare the coffee."

With a quick thank-you, Christine took herself and the letters out to the living-room, not knowing what to make of this. Her feet seemed to float above the floor. She tried to keep her calm. They were only polite letters, she told herself, both of them. Social niceties, nothing more. Yet her hands were trembling with impatience.

Raoul's letter first, she decided. She uncurtained the window to let in the fading sunlight, then climbed up onto the couch and unfolded the single page.

_Dear Madame Giry..._

Relief welled inside her at the sight of Raoul's familiar handwriting. Madame Giry had been right, the letter was polite and brief, but it was warm, and reading it felt good. Like coming home, like finding an old friend again. Like being forgiven. The surprise came at the end, on the very last line. Should you or Mlle Daaé be able to reply, Raoul wrote, address the letter to the 12th corps, Sous-Lieutenant de Chagny.

The army. Christine set the letter in her lap, and looked at it for a while. She tried to imagine Raoul as an officer. It fit, somehow. He had worn an officer's stripes for the Masquerade at the Opéra, and she had teased him then about wanting military glory... _I have all the glory I need right here_, he had laughed, and kissed her full on the mouth, right in front of everyone. _I have you_. But, Christine thought, he did not have her now. And this was no game of dress-up, but a real war, and people died... She tried to rein in her anxiety. She would write back to Raoul and find out everything, and perhaps he would not be at the front at all but somewhere else. Not everybody in the army had to fight, she knew that much. Why would they send somebody like Raoul, an aristocrat and a new officer, into battle? Christine shook her head at herself, and her childish fancies. Not everything was a life-and-death struggle, and here was a letter from a friend, a boy she had known since childhood. If he was happy as an officer, then she would be happy for him, too. But still. She would write and ask.

She took a deep breath, and picked up the second letter. It felt as thin as the first one, and when she opened it, she thought at first there had been some mistake. There was no text, not a word. Instead, on a thin sheet of letter paper, with the ink soaking through to stipple the reverse of the page, there was a piece of music. It was not long enough to be a song, or even a vocal exercise. It was not even finished. But when Christine traced the vocal line with her fingertip, she heard the piano accompaniment as clearly as though it sounded in this room again, and Erik was here and playing for her. Three rising notes, silenced, and then – her voice. Her own voice. On this page at least, she was singing.

Christine put her hand over the notes, as if she could touch the music. Madame Giry's footsteps sounded behind her.

"My daughter did not say when she would be back?"

"Oh," Christine tried to recollect her thoughts. "No. But she should be home soon, I don't think she will stay at Helena's for supper."

Madame Giry's face changed, as though an invisible smile had died away. When she spoke, her voice was strained. "At Helena's."

Unnerved, Christine nodded. It was no lie, she told herself, Meg had indeed planned to go by Helena's house after they were finished for the afternoon, and the last of the good light was already long-gone. She really should have been home by now, but the omnibuses tended to be crowded... It was no lie, but looking up into Madame Giry's face, she suddenly felt exactly as she had on the morning when she had returned from Montmartre, and found Meg waiting.

Without saying another word, Madame Giry went into her own room, and emerged a moment later wearing her hat and gloves.

"Helena Weiss was attacked today," she said flatly. "In the theatre. I was called to take her home to her parents, Christine. My daughter was notable by her absence."

Christine felt her heart descend into her stomach, and remain there. "Um," she said inanely.

"You do know where she is?"

With Madame Giry's eyes boring into her, Christine could do nothing but nod miserably.

"Then please get your hat."


	27. Fireworks

Hm, I wonder if anyone is still reading?.. For those who might be (and if you are, please take a moment to review!), a quick recap: Raoul is in the army, Erik is working in Sedan; Helena Weiss was attacked in Paris and Madame Giry has just found out that Meg is up to something. So, on to Meg...

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**Chapter 27 – Fireworks**

Meg shifted her right leg further along the barre, until the slice of light from the half-open window fell on her ankle again, making the criss-crossed ribbons of her _pointe_ shoe glow white. She bit back a pained breath. Her leg had gone numb and the movement seemed to set a swarm of bees buzzing in her calf. Determinedly, she resumed the pose, leaning along her leg to touch her pointed toe, as though caught mid-stretch.

"No, further to the left. In the light."

Meg stretched a little further. "Like this?"

Monsieur de Gas did not reply, so she assumed the adjustment had satisfied him. She froze, listening to the meticulous scratching of his chalk on cardboard behind her, back and forth. The pose was not as difficult as the one she had held on the previous two sittings, but it left her nothing to look at except the heavy green curtain in front of her face, a view that was not especially exciting. Meg directed her eyes down to the floor instead and tried to read the newspapers that lined it without moving her head. Between splashes of paint, the headlines threatened: "Siege of Metz Set To Continue", "Prussian Spy Arrested", "MacMahon Pushes North", and the latest: "Crown Prince of Prussia Marching for _Paris_! Citizens, To Arms!"

"Your foot," Monsieur de Gas's deep voice interrupted.

Meg steadied her wobbling ankle. "Is that yesterday's _Le Temps_, monsieur? I hope they're exaggerating about the Prussians."

"Am I am paying you twelve francs a sitting to read newspapers?" grumbled Monsieur de Gas. "I should throw you out and use Helena for all these studies. How is her father, by-the-by?"

"Still unwell." Helena had not dared to come to the previous day's sitting for fear of provoking her father, who was nursing a swollen jaw and a foul temper after somebody at the markets called him a spy. Even in the theatre, a few girls had made nasty remarks during the matinee.

"And was he really spying?"

Meg huffed. "Only if the Prussians need the price of turnips at Les Halles."

Monsieur de Gas made a gruff sound of amusement. Meg heard him sorting through a box of chalk beside the easel, before he resumed drawing. "All the same, this business with missing her sittings has to stop. I have clients waiting for that picture. And who knows how long they will be prepared to wait, with these news?"

Meg thought of the headlines under her foot. Raising her eyes, she determinedly focused instead on the moth-eaten backdrop. Monsieur de Gas had been particular about using an olive-green fabric, and Meg now turned the question over in her mind, wondering what possible effect its colour could have on a drawing done in chalk and charcoal. She thought of asking, but decided against it; to an artist at work, a model curious about art would probably seem much like a ballet slipper that started to talk.

This was what Christine had disliked immediately, the day Helena had brought them both here. Meg had fallen in love with the studio as soon as she saw it, with its skylights half-draped to cut the glare, with the dizzying odour of oils, with the paintings that slumped in various attitudes against the walls like a flock of migratory birds. But Christine's eyes had been riveted to the empty modelling platform, and she had looked uneasy and almost repulsed, as though the thing was a spotlit stage or a guillotine. _We would be tools_, she had said quietly. The artist's model, the dancer's shoe, the carefully nurtured voice singing the passion in somebody else's music: neither the art not its creator, but an instrument in the hands of another. Under the eyes of the artist, the model became not a girl but an idea. The girl disappeared.

That was true, Meg supposed, yet when Monsieur de Gas had told her she could come back the next day, her heart had soared. She liked it here. And what was more, she would get paid. Who would have thought you could get sixty francs for five sittings, just holding a pose? It was demanding, even with all her ballet training, but it was also fun to be surrounded by art, to observe its creation. And, fun or not, they did need the money. She had checked her mother's household ledger only the day before, and no matter how carefully Madame Giry budgeted, they were constantly having to cut back on something else. Things were difficult with the war. Prices were rising fast, and if even half of what the newspapers threatened was true, they would continue doing so. The few extra francs that her mother made looking after the _Théâtre Français_ might have been enough before the war, but not now.

Meg rolled her shoulders uneasily, trying to imagine having this conversation with her mother. Her neck was going numb from holding the stretch against the barre. She turned her head a little.

"Hold still!" said Monsieur de Gas. Judging by the impatient sound of cross-hatching, the drawing was giving him trouble.

"I'm sorry." It was becoming more and more difficult to force her legs to obey. The strain in her spine made the rest of her body tremble. Meg struggled for a moment longer, until Monsieur de Gas set down his chalk in frustration.

"Enough. If you can't stand up straight, go and rest."

Meg slid gratefully out of her pose, and into a whole new wave of pain. Her left foot felt wooden, her arms were stiff, and cold needles shot through her legs to her lower back. She sank down onto the floor beneath the barre, leaning forward to massage her calves. She was about to get up when Monsieur de Gas cried:

"Stay there!"

Startled, Meg saw he had snatched up a new sheet of paper and a pencil, his dark brows coming together over his eyes. The pencil's quick whisper replaced the chalk and all at once he was absorbed in drawing, her reprieve forgotten. Meg's heart sank.

"I can't hold this pose for long, Monsieur de Gas."

"No need." He made a note on the edge of the paper and leaned back in his chair, tapping the drawing with the back of the pencil. He nodded slightly, then waved her off. "Go ahead and change, this will do for today. In any case the light is bad now."

Relieved, Meg struggled to her feet and went behind the screen in the corner to change back into her street clothes. Even after five sittings, she still felt a little self-conscious about this arrangement, as though it was something indecent in donning her ballet gear outside the theatre. It was stupid, she told herself, considering how many people saw her in exactly the same costume in the theatre every night. She stepped into her dress hastily, arranging her skirts and buttoning up the bodice.

"When you are ready, I have a poster here you might want to see," came Monsieur de Gas's voice from the other side of the studio.

"A poster?" Meg did up the last button and walked out from behind the screen.

"Agathe Giry is your mother, is she not?"

"Yes," Meg began – and fell silent. From between some cardboard sheets that stood against one wall, Monsieur de Gas had extracted a large watercolour in shades of blue and lilac, an old advertising poster for the Opéra Populaire. An elegant young ballerina stood bathed in ethereal blue light, with the rest of the Wilis lined up behind her. Above, the ornate letters spelled: "Giselle". And below, "With Mlle. Agathe Giry in the title role. Music by Adolphe Adam."

"You may keep it if you like."

"Wherever did you get it?" said Meg in amazement. She had seen a smaller version of the painting among her mother's letters; it was one of the watercolours her father had done for the Opéra when he could not make money selling canvases.

"They had an auction at the old Opéra yesterday; old props and such." Monsieur de Gas regarded the poster critically, combing his fingers through his short beard and leaving traces of chalk. "Not a bad painter, Jules Robuchon – though too much in admiration of Delacroix's colour and not nearly enough attention to line. Still, there is one or two interesting works of his at the Luxembourg. The sketch of a tiger from the _Jardin des Plantes_ is worth more than a casual look."

"Oh yes," Meg said warmly. "There is also the garden scene, with the light broken up by the trellis."

"So there is." Monsieur de Gas glanced at her in surprise. "You have a good eye. Here, pass me that newspaper, I'll wrap it up for you."

"May I really keep it? You don't mind?"

"Of course you may, what would I want with it? It is your mother, after all." He rolled it into a newspaper and handed the package to Meg, who was beaming.

"Enough, enough," he motioned at her in good-natured exasperation. "Get along home, and see that you're on time tomorrow! Here's your fee."

"I will be," Meg promised. She put the money away and danced out of the studio, hugging the poster to her chest. She could not wait to show it to her mother. The only problem was explaining where it came from, but she could always say Helena had bought it at the auction. It was a pity they had not known of it; they could have gone to see what was left of their old home, even if they could not afford to buy anything. However, neither thoughts of the destroyed Opéra, nor the ache in her muscles from holding the pose could dent Meg's good mood. Jumping over the last two stairs, she flew out through the front door, into the last of the mild afternoon that was already becoming evening.

Her mother was outside, waiting.

o o o

"Thanks." Raoul returned the map he and Cloutier had borrowed to the aide-de-camp, who took it away, down to headquarters. Raoul looked around. They had camped among the vineyards near the town of Mouzon, surrounded by green meadows and hills, with the silver thread of the Meuse shimmering in the distance. For three days now they had been marching from Le Chêne, via La Besace and now Mouzon, ever further north, pressing forward to join the other three corps and take up a position from where to give battle. More than once they had heard fighting, but it always seemed to be just one or two Prussians up in the hills, and although some of the men shot at them, Raoul could tell it was nothing more than a show. The real battle lay ahead, and they were chasing the Prussians towards it. Only, as their marches filled up day after day, Raoul had the unpleasant growing sensation of déjà vu, as though the Prussians were not running from them but on the contrary, herding them directly into a trap.

"Not much of a map, is it," said Cloutier, chewing on the end of his cigarette. They had found some tobacco in Mouzon, which had somewhat revived the offices' spirits. "I heard they took it from the school in town."

Raoul flicked the stub of his own cigarette to the powdery ground, extinguishing it with the toe of his boot. "I don't know where that map came from, but it'll be no use to anyone. The scale must have been calculated by a schoolboy. It's all wrong."

Cloutier grunted noncommittally, squinting into the sun as though to get his bearings. "How do you know?"

"I was born around here. Near Chagny."

"You don't say." Cloutier removed the cigarette from his mouth, appraising Raoul as though seeing him for the first time. He gave a deep laugh, "You're serious, aren't you! You've got ancestral lands with that title?"

"Hardly. My grandfather built a house there. I haven't been back here in years, but I know this much: that's the Dieulet woods up ahead." Raoul indicated the hazy line of forested hills. "Do you think they'll have us march before nightfall?"

"Who knows."

Their movements had slowed to a crawl of late, endless delays forcing them to stand around idle for hours and now to make camp for no reason anyone could see. Some said it was due to the worsening health of the Emperor, who still remained with the their corps. Privately, Raoul feared that if the map he had seen was anything to judge by, the generals had no more idea where they were going than the soldiers did.

"If that's the Dieulet woods," said Cloutier slowly, "how far to the Belgian frontier?"

"Perhaps thirty kilometres. We've just about got our backs to... What was that?"

In the next instant Raoul had his answer; the whistle he had heard exploded, shattering the sky. Another shell followed and another, great arcs that burst over the woods like New Year fireworks in Paris, with a deafening noise.

"Fucking hell," Cloutier yelled over the thunder, "That's the 5th! Has to be. We need to get back!"

This was fighting, Raoul realised, even as he instinctively ran from the hill down into the thick of the camp to find his regiment. Either his heartbeat had slowed or the rest of the world seemed to speed up; tents all around him were disgorging hundreds of angry soldiers, all beside themselves with nervous excitement, the camp like a beehive that had been kicked over.

"They're falling back this way!" a dragoon was shouting to another. "What the devil are we doing here if the Prussians are back there?"

"What's back there?"

"How the fuck should I know, some forest!"

"Lieutenant de Chagny!" an aide-de-camp with a stack of folders in his arms hailed Raoul. "You said you know this area?"

When Raoul confirmed it with a gesture, the aide motioned him forward urgently. "This way; the Emperor wants to talk to you."

Raoul had no time to consider his surprise as he followed at a run; the shells were rumbling and exploding, seemingly overhead. He fervently hoped he recalled enough about the terrain here to be of some use at headquarters. He tried to remember papers he had studied with his father, about the family holdings and about the provisioning for the war. Out the front of the squat farmhouse on the Carignan road where the Emperor was lodging, the aide-de-camp stopped.

"Wait here."

The explosions were so frequent now that they became a single roll of thunder that went on and on, reverberating around the hills and drowning out the noise of the camp. Raoul waited, growing anxious as minutes ticked by. High-ranking officers rushed in and out of the house purposefully; one of them shouted an order, but Raoul could not hear what it was, or see who it was addressed to. He cast his eyes around in the search of someone to question as to orders, or at the least to inform his captain that he was detained at headquarters, but it was no good; he was stuck in front of the door like a rock in mid-stream.

"Ah, Chagny. I thought it was you I had seen around the camp."

Raoul whipped around. The man who had spoken came down the porch stairs with difficulty, surrounded by officers. A servant was there at once, offering a campstool, but the Emperor motioned him aside. He leaned against the railings, hunched with pain, his face yellow and moist with the effort of fighting illness. It looked like he was losing.

"Your majesty," Raoul said, bowing. This was the first time Raoul had seen the Emperor this close since the ball in Pairs. The change the intervening three months had wrought in him was frightening. Something of his dismay must have shown in his face, because the Emperor gave him a terrible, pain-constricted smile:

"You are recalling the Tuileries, no doubt. A fine ball, but we have all changed a little since then, have we not? You, as I recall, made quite an impression with the little dancer."

Christine, Raoul thought. He is talking about _Christine_. The thunder of artillery fire seemed to be getting closer, but the Emperor went on in his creaky, pained way, oblivious, as though the talking kept him from other thoughts:

"The ladies talked of nothing else for weeks, you know, we were all putting bets on whether you'd marry her. I had ten gold louis on you myself, after I you did us the great honour of bringing her to the palace. I can't tell you how disappointed I was you didn't marry her after all. You cost me ten louis."

Raoul kept silent. He feared if he opened his mouth, he might say something that would be construed as treason. They had talked about him and Christine, he had always known it but it hadn't mattered because he would marry her – and he was a fool, because he should not care, least of all now. But he had never believed that invitation to the Tuileries was a high society joke, had refused to hear it when his parents had said as much. He had brought Christine there, before their filthy stares, and somebody had won their bet, and somebody else had lost...

Two shells exploded at the same time, a horrible parody of New Year's Eve.

"The battle, your majesty," Raoul said firmly. "It must be the 5th corps near Beaumont."

The Emperor winced in pain.

"Impossible," snapped one of the captains standing behind him, "Beaumont is ten leagues from there!"

The Emperor gave Raoul a long, heavy look, then turned to an aide-de-camp. "Show Lieutenant de Chagny to the map room."

o o o

Christine and Meg followed Madame Giry home in humiliated silence. Christine could not recall having ever seen Madame Giry so angry that she would not even look at them; she walked on ahead as though it did not even matter to her whether they followed. They did not catch the omnibus but walked on foot all the way home, a good hour through the crowded boulevards. Christine glanced at Meg; she still had the same stubborn expression with which she had met them outside the artist's studio. She clutched her paper-wrapped poster and stared straight in front of her, refusing to look at her mother's back. Passing the Gare Saint-Lazare, they almost lost sight of Madame Giry among all the passengers hurrying to and fro, peasants with bundles and furniture tied to carts, richly dressed Parisians hurrying so as not to miss the train from the city.

It was nearly dark by the time Madame Giry turned into their street. The streetlamps had been lit and the whole street glowed warmly against the deep blue of the sky. Laughing couples strolled by and two gentlemen stopped to greet one another, remarking on the fine weather.

"Tomorrow is the last day of summer," Christine said to Meg, as they walked past them. Madame Giry's heels clicked on the pavement ahead.

Meg looked up. Her eyes were red. "I would have told _maman_ myself. I didn't need you to do it for me."

"I had no choice! You told me you'd be at Helena's and... Oh God" – Christine remembered – "Helena has been hurt."

Meg blinked, forgetting her own anger. "Hurt, how?"

"In the theatre. Your mother said it happened after we left; they called her to take Helena home. That's how she knew."

"Is she all right?"

"I don't know," Christine confessed. "Madame Giry didn't exactly give me time to ask."

Meg considered it, then much to Christine's surprise, ran forward to her mother. She caught Madame Giry's arm, making her stop.

"You could have told me about Helena."

Madame Giry looked from Meg to Christine, then said in a calm, quiet voice, "I would have certainly told you, had you been home. Helena Weiss is fine. Please remove your hand from my sleeve, Meg, you are making a scene."

Meg dropped her hand. They resumed walking, now side by side. "I should have told you about the modelling."

Madame Giry said nothing. The doors of their apartment building were just ahead. Christine thought with trepidation of the sort of supper they were about to have. Meg shifted her wrapped poster into her other hand.

"It's twelve francs a sitting, _maman_. All I do is put on my ballet things and stand there for an hour."

Madame Giry halted. She closed her eyes for a moment; when she opened them, all Christine could see was betrayal.

"If that's your way of looking at things, Meg, there are jobs in this city that pay more for less. In brothels."

Christine caught her breath. Meg's mouth worked, wordlessly, as Madame Giry went on. "I have taught you everything I could. And you take all you that know, all that you are, and sell it. Everything I have given you – for twelve francs an hour." Madame Giry's voice was so tight with pain it seemed expressionless. "Go upstairs, both of you."

Christine looked between Madame Giry and Meg. "What about you, Madame Giry?"

"I am going for a walk."

And she left them both there, staring after her back as she sliced a straight line past the pedestrians, with her shoulders erect and her steps light and precise, as though dancing on an injury at which the public would never guess.

"We should follow," said Meg, but Christine stopped her:

"Don't, Meg... Let's go upstairs."


	28. To The Death

Thanks again for supporting this fic, guys – your reviews and comments mean the world to me. Those who complained about the lack of Erik in the last chapter: take heart. All Erik, all the time, coming right up!

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**Chapter 28 – To The Death**

The day had been unseasonably warm, and the construction site stank of a hundred unwashed provincials sweating into their work-blouses. Still, Erik acknowledged, they did well enough. The structure was mostly scaffold and heavy beams, but already the stonemasons had started to flesh out its skeleton, and Erik's sharp eyes could now discern, in the twisting galleries of stone, the ground floor layout from his own plans. There would be the doorways, the lobby, the mandsarded roof that was at once modern and perfectly in tune with the Louis XV façades around it. His courthouse was beginning to take shape. Silhouettes of builders moved noisily between the beams in billows of white dust, shouting to one another, and the construction site resounded with the combined din of their voices, hammering, sawing, chiselling, all merging into a continuous ear-splitting crash like the percussion section of an orchestra being struck by a falling piano.

If they had thought his opera loud, they should have heard his architecture.

Peeling the edge of the bandage from his scars, Erik rubbed at the corner of his lip. The chalky dust got into his mouth, squeaked on his teeth and caked onto the exposed skin of his face, where it mingled with perspiration, so that by the end of each day he and all the builders had enough plaster on their faces to pass for the chorus in _Il Muto_. He was torn between a distaste for the dirt, and the thrill of seeing so many faces unintentionally masked. In the noise and the dust, they were working. Working for him.

He was not unaware of the war. Every day brought news of the Prussians skulking around the countryside, of ambushes, minor skirmishes, even a battle rumoured to have wiped out the entire French 5th Corps at the nearby town of Beaumont. None of it concerned him, however. He had a courthouse to build.

Stepping between some scaffolding, Erik raised a hand to attract the attention of an engineer working above. "Up there! What's keeping you?"

"All done, sir. Looks good!"

The youth swung himself off the beam, gripping a rope as nimbly as a monkey. The sight annoyed Erik; he did not want to feel he was running a circus here. The engineer thumped on the ground, throwing the rope aside, and wiped the sweat from his face with the crook of his elbow.

"The lads did good work, Monsieur Andersson, the beams are sound. We can start laying the pipes here."

"And on the rue Saint-Michel side?"

"There too."

Erik dismissed him with a nod and headed around to the rue Saint-Michel, where the façade of the courthouse would eventually rise.

Half a dozen men in caps and blue work-blouses were unloading sections of lead pipe from a wagon harnessed to a team of horses, while a group of ladies watched them curiously from the pavement. Erik resolutely ignored them. Bored by their small-town amusements, the good people of Sedan made it their business to stroll into the rue Saint-Michel at least once a day, there to position themselves in the path of the builders and exclaim over the speed of construction. The men predicted with assumed authority that the building would be finished in record time; the women chattered and pointed from behind the dainty handkerchiefs they held to their mouths to block out the dust. Extraordinary, he heard them say, how fast it was happening. Supernatural.

_Supernatural_, Erik thought sardonically. Certainly; whenever someone got things done, it was always first impossible, then supernatural. Three weeks ago, this same crowd had declared that it was preposterous to begin construction at such a dangerous, uncertain time, and that Monsieur the Parisian Architect was a fool to think he would get so much as a single stonemason for his work. They had been silenced quickly enough. Egrot, with all the smiling persistence of a short and fat battering ram, had secured workers for Erik within a day of his arrival in Bazeilles, recruiting from surrounding villages men who had lost their jobs to the general apprehension about the war. Erik paid well and they worked willingly, with all the zeal of men with nowhere else to go. Having had the foresight to incorporate into his design the existing foundation laid by his predecessor, Erik cut the time-consuming task of ripping out the stone and laying it anew. Day by day, the courthouse rose.

"Good day, Monsieur Andersson!" trilled one of the women who were watching the pipes being unloaded, giving a little wave at Erik's approach. She was young, plump, and wore a gigantic yellow hat with a brim that would not have fit through an omnibus door. Still, this was his audience, such as it was, and Erik supposed a bit of gratitude was in order.

He spared her the sight of him smiling through the cracked layer of dust, and instead opted for a stiff bow. "Good day, madame. If you wouldn't mind moving – these men are working."

She gave a musical laugh. "It's mademoiselle, actually. Mademoiselle Birkon, my father runs the café near the mill."

"Delighted. Do step back from the horses, mademoiselle, unless you mean to supplement their diet with your hat."

Mademoiselle-Not-Madame Birkon sprang back with a cry of dismay, just in time to keep the horse's soft lips from reaching her hat-brim. Her friends pulled her further away from the workmen and from Erik, giggling behind their handkerchiefs and eyeing his bandaged face with open curiosity, as though he was a part of the building.

Erik passed them without comment. The ability to ignore their bothersome staring was perhaps not the most noticeable of his recent accomplishments, but he felt particularly satisfied by it. He still did not like crowds, nor did he feel any obligation to like them; but thus far, their hats and handkerchiefs had shown no sign of turning into muskets and pitchforks. Gone were the days when he would turn away from every oversized hat and its wearer. If they were awed by his efficiency, he could do little to dissuade them.

The women's chatter behind him was soon drowned out by the construction noise, and Erik continued inspecting the site in relative peace. Past the end of the street, the late sunlight was turning fortress walls into liquid bronze, the exact colour of Christine's eyes in the gaslight—

No. Not that.

He twitched his bandage into place, swallowing dust. Bad enough that he had sent her music, that first evening in Bazeilles. Bad enough that every night seethed with dark, secret memories of Christine trapped in his room. He would not stand for being pursued by day as well, he refused to be. _Tell me_, her voice brushed his mind, a lover's voice, hot in his ear. _What was your mother's name? Tell me about the gypsies, about the Phantom... Give me all your secrets._

He was not listening.

The devil take it all, he wanted to see her again.

"Monsieur Andersson!" called the foreman, a hulking fellow with rolled-up sleeves and a nasal accent that marked him a Breton.

"Verdier," Erik acknowledged. Grateful to be pulled back to himself, he listened closely to Verdier's concerns about obtaining the right sort of glass for the rose window and about getting the bricks locally, in case train lines should be interrupted.

"Minor hold-ups aside, we're well on track," the foreman finished, scratching his bristly moustache. "Unless the Prussians get in the way of the supplies, I'd say we should have the structural work done in four months."

"Four months," Erik repeated, neutrally.

"Yes sir, we're working fast. I better call a halt here; the sun is going down."

Erik let Verdier release the workers and see to securing the site for the night. _Four months_, he thought later, trundling in a squeaky carriage towards the flickering distant lights of Bazeilles. Four months for the major work, and at least as long again for the rest: for decoration, sculptures, paving and design of the interior spaces. None of that would absolutely require his continued presence in Sedan, but all of it loomed heavy between him and Paris – and even the faintest possibility of seeing Christine.

The courthouse was a test, he knew. He knew. It was the condition he had set himself for his return from exile; its completion would confirm him an architect in deed rather than in word. Then, and only then, could he come back to Paris, triumphant and with every right to a little thing like inviting Mademoiselle Daaé to supper. Christine Daaé would have nothing to fear from Monsieur Erik Andersson, Architect.

In Bazeilles, Madame Egrot and her husband welcomed him in their cosy, old-fashioned dining-room, with the same warmth as they did every night. After all, he was their friend, the man who would wield their son's hunting gun to protect their wine and potatoes from would-be looters. Erik let them believe it. With the dust washed from his face and hands, he felt even more the architect here than at the construction site. He slipped easily into his chair, politely fielding the usual enquiries about his progress, playing his part in their conversation. "I trust you have had a pleasant day, Madame... No, I haven't read it yet... The Prussians in Raucourt, indeed? Yes, quite worrying. The turbot is delicious, Madame Egrot, more than the equal of any I've had in Paris." He was pleased with himself, almost at peace.

Madame Egrot, with her pale features and the quick movements of a small animal, served him herself, studying his bandaged face with a vague hope in her eyes, as though his supposed survival after being shot was a talisman for the return of her son. Her husband meanwhile drew Erik into the usual discussions of the war, which continued over coffee in the parlour. Just when Erik felt he had humoured the man long enough, Egrot set his cup aside:

"But, my friend, there is one bit of good news in all this. Our cellar is all finished; the workers left this afternoon."

"I'm aware of that," Erik said. "They are, after all, my workers." To allay Egrot's fears about looters, Erik had condescended to design a concealed cellar for the couple's more valuable possessions. He had intended it merely as incentive for Egrot to find the construction workers quickly, but the couple's delight at the idea knew no bounds. Imagine, they said, an architect from Paris designing their cellar!

"Come; take a look." Egrot said, beaming. "I must have the architect's opinion!"

"A secret shared is a secret lost, Egrot. I have no need to see it. Believe me when I say that I've seen more than enough cellars in my line of work."

"What secret? It was you that designed it. Besides which, I dare say I trust you a great deal more than those workers who built it. Pauline!" Egrot called. He knocked on the kitchen door, where Madame Egrot was talking with the cook. "We're invading Rachel's kitchen for a minute!"

Erik stood aside, half-amused and half-uncomfortable as the women stepped out. "Take a candle," Madame Egrot advised, in the thin-lipped way that suggested she disapproved of her husband dragging this big-city gentleman around kitchens and cellars. "Forgive him, Monsieur Erik; he is like a child with a new playpen."

The entrance to the cellar was in a corner of the kitchen. Erik took a lit candle from the counter and followed Egrot down into what appeared at first a regular store-room filled with wine bottles and sacks of potatoes – until one located the niche in the wall that hid a trapdoor, designed to be all but invisible to anyone who was not expecting it there. This opened into a short corridor and then, Erik knew, into a second, smaller cellar. That was all.

"Fascinating. Four walls and a door." He tried not to breathe too deeply. The raw smell of earth and the burning candle wax were bringing back memories; he struggled against them.

"But what an ingenious design," Egrot enthused. "Look, you cannot see it at all except if you are standing right over here."

"I know," Erik said tightly. "I designed it. Excuse me, I am going upstairs."

He felt better upstairs. Madame Egrot served more coffee and they sat in the little parlour, with the steady monotony of the Egrots' conversation chasing away the ghosts. Erik gulped the scalding coffee and let it burn a trail to his stomach. The past was in the past; it was done with; he had made himself an architect. He was Erik Andersson, the architect of Sedan's courthouse, people knew his name and he tipped his hat to them in the street. He would finish the courthouse. He would be able to see Christine again.

The ghosts returned at night. Then, in the stuffy dark room with the window shut against even the faintest sliver of light, the musty smell of the cellar filled Erik's mouth and nostrils. He was small again, half boy and half man, alone in the underground grotto near the lake, while above him the Opéra pulsed with light and music, a frenetic paradise of laughing people.

The grotto was gradually changing. He was furnishing it with beautiful things, scraps of props and scenery he pilfered from the storage cellars above, occasionally from under the very noses of the stagehands. He was so good at it that he knew he had never needed help, least of all from the ballerina who had showed him this place, only to leave him here alone. She had kept trying to talk to him after she rejected his invitation, but he never answered, and after a while she stopped. He had not seen her for a long time, not since she had become fat with child and disappeared. It made no difference. He had learned to read and figure just fine by himself, words and music both, listening and watching obsessively from spaces in the rafters or behind walls. There was nobody in the vast paradise of the Opéra whose knowledge of it could compare with that acquired by the Devil's Child. Regretfully, he recalled that the ballerina had used to call him Erik.

The footsteps appeared one night after he returned from a trip upstairs for provisions. Dark stains on the shore. Whoever it was must have waded across the canals. The prints were wide and sparse, a man's tread. Much bigger than him, Erik judged, just from the pattern of those boots. He knew, because Paolo the gypsy had worn boots that left imprints in the sawdust, and they were exactly the same size. The prints peppered his house, stamping on things that belonged to him alone. Grabbing a coil of rope, he followed them upstairs.

He could not remember the way the stagehand had looked or what words he had screamed – only the low, bubbling F sharp that distorted his whole face with its bulging eyes. Being dragged down twelve sharp-edged steps on the end of a rope shut him up. Erik shoved the corpse into the lake; it scraped on the cement and made a gentle splash, and clouds of blood pinkened the water around the split scalp. He stared at them, calmly, until all of a sudden his stomach lurched and he gagged – because he was pitiful, weak, he deserved to be found. The corpse stared at him in mute horror; it knew too much; he had to get rid of it.

In one of the many canals in the labyrinth of flooded corridors, they found a dead man. Some said it was suicide. Others said it had been a ghost.

The stairs could not be scrubbed clean, and so the Opera Ghost had been forced to obtain a carpet to cover them. It was a rich red weave, perfect for one who was the soul of the Opéra, but it demanded things to go with it. A polished leather mask instead of sack-cloth, a black wig to cover the rest; costumes, gloves and mirrors. Mirrors most of all, because mirrors never lied. The Phantom had looked into a mirror and believed his eyes.

When the ballerina returned to the Opéra with her child, he forgave her. She understood about masks, having exchanged Mademoiselle for Madame, and so the Phantom found her useful. Only sometimes, the smell of raw earth and blood returned to claim him, and he fled up to his hiding space behind the wall of the chapel, where he had first entered the Opéra. At one of those times, he had found Christine.

The night was peaceful in Bazeilles, in the shuttered bedchamber where Erik lay prone on his back, stretched thin, hardly breathing.

He exhaled and closed his eyes, and there again was Christine, but not the child, not the angel. She was a woman, beautiful, naked as the statues in the Opéra, her eyes burning amber and bronze in the gaslight and her cool fingertips insistent on the awful contours of his face, eroding it like rain, like the splash of water in a lake. _Give me all your secrets_, and her voice was impatient and so full of desire that, God help him, he did. He told her of murder and she kissed his mouth, hard, demanding more; he told her of the gypsies, of his sack-cloth mask, of pain, humiliation, hunger, woe, and of the night he had first heard her voice and knew that this, at last, was his reward. He held her delicate face, gripped the back of her neck, the round of her shoulder, claiming her body, her voice, all of her for himself. She was his, she belonged to him, he had wrought that voice from her and she would never be free, never. But she was not listening, she thrust him down and raised her face to the light, the angle of her jaw exposing her throat, and then there was only her unbearable beauty and the heat and the pressure and the fire of release that tore from him the last of his pathetic defences.

My God, Erik thought, subsiding. The demons leached slowly from his body, laughing at the tangled sheets in his clenched hands.

He groped blindly for the candle, lit it. The room floated in shades of gold. He went shakily to the table, sat down. There was writing paper there, and ink. Egrot had given him plenty for his letter to Christine, but Erik had sent her only music, goddamned music, always music for her voice. The paper had been sitting on his desk ever since, untouched.

Dipping a pen in ink, he tore a sheet of paper free and scrawled: "Christine, tell me about Sweden. Tell me about your father." _Give me all your secrets._

He fetched the candle and held the paper to the flame, afraid that in the morning he might have sent it. There was a low rumble outside, like distant thunder. Perhaps it would rain. Then tomorrow, he would return to the construction site and there would be no dust, and everyone would work unmasked. Erik leaned across the table to open the shutters, letting in a gust of cool air that extinguished the candle and scattered the letter's ashes. He sat back, completely worn out, and breathed the smells of the leaves from the night-time garden, waiting for the rain.

What roused him was a vague unease, a sort of sixth sense he had long ago learned to trust. He listened. The thunder was still there, closer now. And sure enough, somebody was coming upstairs.

He swung the door open before Egrot could knock.

The man jumped back so fast he nearly hit the opposite wall. He clapped one chubby hand to his heart, the lamp in the other throwing startled shadows on his face and dressing-robe.

"Good God, Andersson! You could give a man a heart attack, leaping out of the dark like that."

"With pleasure," Erik agreed. His eyes darted to the sash across Egrot's shoulder. "Ah. But there are more certain means of murder, are there not? For example – with a rifle?"

He advanced light as a cat and caught the sash of Egrot's hunting gun, nearly jerking the man off his feet. "You had better be suicidal."

Egrot's usually ruddy face turned the same colour as the plaster behind him. Erik ripped the rifle from him like a toy. He flicked the strap in his hand, forming a noose.

"Bah-bah-but," Egrot babbled, "But you said – Andersson, you promised..."

"How much! The reward, how much is it?"

Egrot blinked at him rapidly, pink-eyed as a rabbit. "Re-reward?"

He had trusted this man. A frightful roar was building in Erik's ears, growing to a crescendo; he tried to curse, but it came out as a sob.

"I was an architect, damn you!"

He raised the noose, hearing nothing now but the roar of blood in his head, knowing in this split second that he had never been anything but himself, that he was born a freak and would die a freak. His breath hitched in his throat. The roar became a rapid barrage of sharp sounds, like running feet.

"There it is again, they must have entered the town!" Egrot exclaimed suddenly, as though he was no longer aware of the noose. He weaselled out from Erik's surprised grasp. "That noise, that's soldiers. You were awake – you must have heard it too... Andersson, what's the matter with you? Give me back my gun."

Erik felt the rifle taken from his yielding hands. His mind flailed for purchase, trying to reconcile Egrot's words with his purpose. Then, like an illusion of a blank wall snapping into sudden focus, he understood.

"The Prussians are here."

"Yes, man, yes!" Egrot's nervous excitement made his voice shrill as a woman's. "Whatever is the matter with you that you go taking my gun and talking gibberish at me?"

"With _me_?" Now his surprise had worn off, Erik was incensed. "Need I remind you that it was you who turned up at my door at three in the morning with a loaded firearm!"

"Need I remind you," Egrot retorted, rabbit eyes flashing, "That you swore, Andersson, solemnly swore, to help me protect my home? You cannot mean to have another of your fishing incidents at a time like this!"

"You know nothing about it!"

"Monsieur Erik?"

Erik raised his eyes to see Madame Egrot at the top of the stairs, hastily throwing a wrap over her dressing-grown. She looked between the men, puffy-eyed and blinking behind the lamp. "What is it? What about the Prussians?"

"Nothing, Pauline, go back to bed." Egrot's voice trembled far too much to be soothing. "I'll just go up to the attic and have a look. Likely it is our own men moving through."

Madame Egrot hugged her wrap closer, crossing her arms. "Even if that's true," she said after a moment's pause, "the Prussians can't be far behind."

Egrot gave up on his attempt to be a dutiful husband and resumed panicking. "They must have turned north from Raucourt. They couldn't have marched this fast, it's impossible. Impossible!"

Just then, there was the sound of someone yelling outside, and a shouted order.

"Oh, my God... There is going to be a battle, isn't there." Madame Egrot's voice seemed to be begging someone to contradict her.

Her husband clutched at his rifle, and said nothing. The two of them turned to Erik, like twin statues of Panic and Terror in some forgotten temple. They seemed to be waiting for him to say something.

Erik's mouth twisted, and he laughed. "It seems the mob has arrived."


	29. No Man's Land

I'm back! A big thank-you to everyone for your patience and your encouragement over the last few months.

A recap: we left Raoul witness to the battle of Beaumont, and Erik at the Egrots' house in Bazeilles just as the war arrives on the doorstep. Back in Paris, Mme Giry has discovered that Meg has been posing for Degas.

* * *

**Chapter 29 – No Man's Land**

It took hours for what was left of the 5th to trickle in from Beaumont. The 12th's first division had been sent to disengage it from the ambush and allow a retreat, but Raoul was not among them. Marshal MacMahon and General Douay required him at headquarters with the maps, arguing over river crossings – while a few short kilometres away men were being slaughtered by the thousand. The officers had to raise their voices over the constant boom of Prussian artillery. Raoul calculated the necessary routes, accounting for the lay of the land, forced to swallow his resentment and shame at thus being placed out of reach of danger. There were Prussians out there. The enemy had eluded them for weeks, and he was here, without a shot fired from his rifle. What was the use of the maps? It was obvious there was only one way out: through the fortified town of Sedan and towards Mézières, where they could regroup and face the Prussians.

When the final shells died away, the room resounded with oppressive silence. Nobody said that the 5th was no more; nobody spoke a word about the Prussians, still alive, still out there, invisible. After a while, they returned to the maps. Raoul excused himself; the Marshal dismissed him.

Outside the house, Raoul rolled a cigarette with shaking fingers and lit up. He joined a group of other officers, who were grimly watching the escaped soldiers already appearing on the Carignan road. They climbed the vineyard slopes of the camp in twos and threes: shaken, wild-eyed men, their uniforms turned to rags encrusted in blood and mud, moving in a stupor of horror. A man who must have been his company's bugler still carried his instrument, the polished brass spattered all over with red. He averted his eyes. Raoul would have liked to do the same. Instead, he was compelled to stare into the closed faces of the survivors as though he knew them, as though each one was walking out from the cellars of the Opéra. They had been men. Now they were slaves, ambushed and useless, freed from certain death by the intervention of others.

Raoul wished he was anywhere but here; anywhere but safe. The bitter smoke he dragged into his lungs burned its way down. It didn't matter. As soon as the 5th was in, they would be marching to Sedan and the northern fortresses, marching fast enough to outrun the Prussians. They would regroup and fight back. They would win.

The 12th broke camp within the hour and marched at the double throughout the rest of the day, without stopping for food. The nearness of the enemy was now a palpable pressure, a heaviness in the air, and the remnants of the 5th among them only added to the sense of urgency. The Prussians harassed their rearguard constantly, scattered gunfire following like laughter in their wake. The march became a stampede, a race to be the first to claim some defensible position, somewhere they could fight. They kept their heads down and marched.

When they finally crossed the river at Douzy that evening, Raoul was too exhausted to be relieved. Yet they had done it. They had made it here before the Prussians; there was no more gunfire, no enemy in sight. Every man Raoul could see, Cloutier, the other officers, were filthy with streaked dust and sweat. When they grinned at one another, their teeth were blinding in their grimy faces. The valley of Givonne lay wide open before them, peaceful and untouched. Ahead, patches of dark forest alternated with clusters of houses marking villages Raoul had last seen riding with his father as a boy. He could just make out the spire of a village church, and beyond that, the longed-for fortifications of Sedan. They had done it.

Cloutier nodded at the village ahead of them. "What's that one, Chagny?"

Raoul felt the dust crack around his mouth as he spoke.

"Bazeilles."

o o o

Another order rang out from the street, making Egrot and his wife jump identically, like spectators at the circus. Erik glanced over his shoulder, listening until the sound of running grew quiet.

"The attic," said Egrot, but Erik was a step ahead. He sprang up the narrow stairwell without bothering to wait for the huffing man and pulled himself through the trapdoor into the dusty space above.

The attic window opened onto part of the road to Sedan. Erik unlatched it, carefully in case the creaking shutters should attract the attention of some marksman below. The night revealed a crude barricade across the unpaved street. The soldiers around it were not wearing the red and navy of the French army, but Erik did not recognise the uniforms. Through the rustling treetops, he saw two other barricades under construction at either end of the street. He cursed inwardly. Getting out of here would be complicated, and it appeared he did not have much time. He looked again at the strange uniforms.

"It's pitch black out there, I can't see a thing!" hissed Egrot behind him, in a stage whisper that would have been heard across the street.

Erik turned sharply and clapped one hand to the man's mouth. Egrot held on to his rifle, as though seriously determined to protect his house. Instead of whispering, Erik pitched his own voice deep enough that it was near-inaudible:

"Be silent. There are sixteen men below, all in blue, more down the street. They are not Prussians."

Egrot blinked his rabbity eyes over the gag of Erik's hand. Erik released him, almost gagging himself at the contact with the man's slimy, sweaty skin. Egrot wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Marines," he mouthed, not quite a whisper. "Ours."

As though to confirm this, a string of curses in pure French came from below. Erik did not relax. If they were building barricades, they were not merely passing through; they were expecting Prussians. The war was here. Egrot seemed to have come to the same conclusion, because he moved away – but then instead of running downstairs, he went to the trunk. With ceremony, he lifted the second rifle out of the nest of household oddments and his son's boyhood toys, and offered it to Erik.

Erik watched Egrot hold the gun out to him: a sombre little king in dressing-robe and slippers, knighting his champion. Right. Ten minutes ago this man had been terrified of looters; now he would join the battle.

"Go back," Erik said, not cruelly. "Hide in the cellar with your wife."

Egrot chose to ignore him. His shining round face seemed to say, _This is our moment, our fight. Time to protect our own_.

Erik could not have agreed more. He took the gun, found his grip, and slammed it sideways.

When Egrot crumpled to the floor, Erik was almost certain he was merely unconscious, but he had neither the time nor the inclination to check. The Prussians might already be marching through Sedan.

He considered taking Egrot's other gun, but decided its weight did not justify its necessity. A quick search of the trunk revealed several magazines of cartridges; he took these along with a length of cord that could be of use. Shadow-quiet, he slipped out of the house, through the back door Egrot had used to leave open when they went fishing. The road to Sedan was barricaded, but there were small streets he knew by now, back alleys and gardens he could take. For someone accustomed to the blind tunnels of the Opéra, these were hardly an obstacle.

When he was some distance from the house, he glanced back, and saw a white oval in the kitchen window. Madame Egrot's face, watching him.

o o o

Madame Giry crossed one illuminated street after another, through clouds of twinkling laughter around the cafés, through flocks of glittering couples hurrying to the theatres. She did not dwell on the image of her daughter clutching her ballet things, her clothes still giving off the sharp smell of the artist's oils and turpentine. She did not ask herself how many other times Meg had told her she was visiting Helena Weiss, how long this has been going on. She thought of the day she had learned she was with child, of the oil paints and turpentine and of Jules dropping the posters he had been working on. A whole sheaf of ballerinas had slipped from his hands onto the backstage floor, ruined.

Twelve francs an hour, her daughter had said. That's what it was worth.

She might have understood it had it been about love. Had it been a young girl's foolish infatuation with art, a bohemian romance, she might have forgiven Meg for not knowing better – but it was nothing of the sort. Meg had taken things that were not hers, things that belonged to the world of the stage behind the footlights: the pain, the music, the endless training, the magic of it. She had sold ballet to pay the bills as another girl might have sold her mother's jewellery.

Madame Giry turned into the rue le Peletier. The boarded-up bulk of the Opéra rose like a spectre out of the morass of smaller buildings, more grey than black after months of decay. The doorways and colonnade were blocked, yesterday's auction banner drooping limply above the locked and barred main entrance. Dark shadows licked the masonry over the upper storey windows; above, pigeons flapped and cooed on the high ledges. The walls were plastered with newspapers and flyers of every kind, their proclamations obscenely loud in the theatre's graveyard:

"Nine Prussian Spies Arrested Today! Plot to betray Metz foiled!" read one beneath the circular windows of the old dormitories. And beside that: "Massacre at Beaumont, 5th corps destroyed! Paris, to arms!" Madame Giry tore both down as she passed, tossing the wads in the gutter.

Around the side of the building little had changed, save the boarded-up windows and the pile of rotting props behind the stairs where months ago she had come upon the former Opera Ghost. Even the walls were almost unscarred. The cobbled lane was dark and empty, just as though the night's performance was underway within. There was no sign of people – or, indeed, ghosts. This much was a relief. She could not be confronted with any more surprises this evening.

Stepping over the running gutter, she found the loose grille. It had not been boarded up. Madame Giry bent down and removed her gloves, tucking them carefully away, gripped the damp iron bars and pulled. The rusted hinges screeched in protest, then abruptly gave way. The Opéra lay ahead.

The passage was barely wide enough to accommodate an adult, but Madame Giry was in no mood to concern herself with the comfort of this egress. She had not so completely neglected her body that she could not drop from the stone sill down onto the dark wet floor below, nor had she forgotten her way around. The drop jolted her spine, but the pain was momentary. Water splashed under her shoes. In the space between the grille and the ruined stained glass window of the chapel, the lone gas-jet was dead, fringed with cobwebs, and the darkness smelled only of stray cats and mould. Madame Giry reached out and touched the wall. That was all. It was rough and chilly, and she stood like that for some time, running ungloved fingers over the old cement.

She did not open what remained of the stained glass window into the chapel. Beyond it would be stairs, then the side-corridor leading to her former apartment. She had seen them all after the fire, when they had come here to assess the damage. It was not a journey to be made twice. By touch, she located the ladder beside the stained glass window, and descended into the Phantom's passages.

Her footsteps echoed all the way down the damp corridor of the first cellar, quick and heedless of the noise. There were fewer rats than she had expected, perhaps because this place no longer held anything for them to eat. No doubt the former Opera Ghost would claim to have scared them all away personally.

Directly above her were the ballet practice rooms, with their austere tall windows, mirrors. She remembered her daughter, aged three, struggling to reach for the barre. Her daughter, aged seven, turning perfect _fouettés_ one after another, four, five, six, until her intense concentration turned to disbelief, then to such shining joy it had taken Madame Giry's breath away. She had overheard Christine asking Meg afterwards, quiet and shy, "Teach me to do that." Twelve francs an hour. A bargain.

The door to the storage room where the old ballet posters were kept was open. Madame Giry paused outside, in case some squatters had made this unlikely place their home, but there were no sounds save the occasional creaking of the wrecked building. In the mouldy darkness, she examined the boxes that lined the wall, throwing each lid open and searching inside. To her disappointment, the older ones at the back were empty, presumably sold at the auction. The more recent ones were untouched.

Without a candle, Madame Giry could not tell what posters remained, but she trusted whatever she found would be enough to keep Meg's interest: a whole sheaf of ballerinas, not constructed in a studio but alive, onstage. Jules Robuchon had never sketched in a studio, had never needed to pay a ballerina to pretend to be what she was. He could find the true line of a movement, catch the fleeting pain behind a girl's smile. And she had loved him for it, for a time. When other girls had searched for wealthy patrons, she had danced, and Jules had painted her dancing. She had never taken a sou from him. But Meg was not her. Her daughter had made her own choice.

Collecting several posters at random, Madame Giry rolled them up tightly and retraced her steps back to the surface. She did not bother closing the boxes behind her. Let the past rot with the building.

In the street, two working-class men with buckets of glue were pasting new placards over the old, the text blaring something or other about the war. One cracked a joke; they both laughed. Madame Giry swept past them, carrying her own posters.

o o o

Erik was nearly outside Bazeilles when he heard the first gunshots. He had taken winding paths behind houses and gardens to avoid the barricades, and although he doubted that he was much closer to Sedan now than he had been before, he was at least out of the worst of the barricaded area. From his place in the lee of a hedge he could not see the men who had fired, but it sounded close. The shots woke the dogs in the entire town; their frenzied barking filled the range of Erik's hearing, every octave. The next volley of bullets found its mark and then even the dogs could not disguise the shrill cry of a man struck down. The sound kept echoing in Erik's head, finding a harmony. There were other men running now, more shots.

The sun had not yet risen and the night had barely thinned, yet the firing continued. Erik kept moving. He was no part of this. His courthouse in Sedan was what mattered, without it he was nothing but a freak, an escaped murderer, not an architect at all. He had to make sure it was untouched. He had built his new world so carefully from the ground up; he was not about to let it go, not for anything. The Prussians were in Bazeilles; very well, that was fine with him. He did not intend to stay here and wait to lose his courthouse. Two rifles against an army were odds no fool would take.

Slipping along the hedge, then along the whitewashed wall of the adjacent house, Erik peered into the street. A barricade bristled with blue-uniformed soldiers aiming their rifles, in the distance were others in plumed helmets. Those helmets marked them as Bavarians rather than Prussians, but they were the same mob. Even with his sharp eyes, Erik could not make out much of what was going on; a haze of foul-smelling smoke concealed much of the barricade. He surmised the Marines had orders to occupy the village and hold it against the enemy, but as he could not tell where the Bavarians were coming from, this was little use in helping him get out. Possibly he should have paid more attention to Egrot's newspapers.

Something whizzed past, like a beetle. Erik had ducked back behind the wall before he was consciously aware it had been a bullet. It glanced off a tree, splintering bark. More bullets followed, then a wave of screams from the barricade, an order to "Hold!", then nothing. He crossed the street in a half-crouch, a hunchbacked spider, and continued past the next house while the quiet spell held. The bullets were left behind.

In stops and starts, he made his way to the fields west of the village, keeping back from the Sedan road. The dew-covered greenery – beets, radishes, whatever the hell it was – was planted in neat rows; his shoes sank half to the ankle between them. He was running without moving, getting nowhere. At this rate it would take another two hours to get to Sedan. By now the sun was rising and a bright line had edged over the mass of cloud behind Bazeilles, silhouetting the village. White puffs of smoke rose over the rooftops where the barricades were.

Erik wiped the sweat that poured into his eyes, nearly dislodging his bandage in the process. The village was waking up. He had passed people coming out into the streets in their nightclothes to offer cups of water and wine to the soldiers; others dragging stones, filling sacks with dirt, anything to add to the barricades. The more sensible ones shut their windows, barricading themselves indoors.

He could not see the Egrots' house. There were too many roofs and trees in the way, and in any case, Egrot and his wife were no doubt holed up in their cellar by now, just as he had advised.

On the road below him there was a constant rattling noise, the sound of many booted feet hitting packed dirt. Leaving the field, Erik crouched down in the tall grass and looked down to the base of the slope, towards the valley. The troops on the Sedan road were French. They poured into the valley in an endless river, a thousand, fifty thousand, he had no way to judge the numbers from where he hid. Thick dust hung over them. The column snaked into the shadowy distance, its head vanishing into the retreating night in the direction of Sedan. He had imagined soldiers marching in step, but these ones staggered and lurched and swayed like no men he had ever seen, barely lifting their feet. As Erik watched, a man tripped over a stone and sprawled face-down in the dirt by the side of the road, asleep. His cap rolled away.

Erik shadowed the column as far as Balan, the next village between Bazeilles and Sedan, careful to remain concealed by the grass and trees that lined the road. Getting into Sedan itself would present no real difficulty. There were other civilians among the soldiers, villagers seeking the relative safety of Sedan's fortified walls, townspeople hurrying home. Erik did not join them. The morning light made him aware of his state of undress: all he had on were the rumpled shirt and trousers he had fallen asleep in, now caked in dust and dirt from the streets and fields. He imagined this to be the reason for his growing discomfort, the sensation that he was walking naked out into the light. It was not the real reason.

The truth was, he had reached a no man's land. Ahead lay Sedan and his courthouse, a hollow structure of beams and stone that was no more defensible than Egrot's pathetically exposed house back in Bazeilles. Just what was it he intended to do, truly? Would he stand atop the construction site with a rifle, like Egrot in his attic? Or would he rather scramble about the scaffolding like a rat in a maze, waiting for a Prussian shell to send the whole thing to bury him alive?

He turned around. There was Bazeilles in the distance, its church spire dark-grey under the overcast sky, veiled in smoke. The silence of it was unnerving: he could not hear the battle, only the birds in the tree above him, the wind flapping the back of his shirt, the soldiers trudging along the road below.

Erik's throat closed up, making it hard to breathe. He had made a mistake somewhere. He had walked right out of the architect's skin, and now he was here between Sedan and Bazeilles, in the middle of nowhere, a ghost. He did not know what he was supposed to do.


	30. Ein Leid

Thanks so much for your reviews of the previous chapter, guys, I truly appreciate your support! I've had a request for more trivia, so here's a little bit for this chapter: The division of the 12th army corps that was ordered to occupy Bazeilles, made up predominantly of Marines and associated troops, was called the Blue Division because of their uniforms. They were some of the best troops the French army had at this point, although as you will remember, the 12th was also full of green recruits and untrained officers like Raoul.

Please note this chapter contains scenes of violence. Keep the M rating in mind.

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**Chapter 30 – Ein Leid**

Christine could not remember when she had last felt so frustrated. Meg had retreated to her room and was stubbornly pinning the _Giselle_ poster to the wall, standing on her bed to straighten it out, taking exaggerated care in smoothing the edges. She was determined to go back to the artist's studio tomorrow. The money for her sittings lay on the dressing-table under the lamp: sixty francs in rumpled banknotes. It was enough for a pair of gloves, more than enough for the gas bill. Christine had no right to argue with it, but the pain she had seen in Madame Giry's eyes pricked her with hot needles of guilt. To make things worse, Madame Giry must return to see Meg's poster, this copy of the little watercolour sketch she had seen in her letters. Christine dreaded the silent stand-off that would follow. It was rare for Meg and Madame Giry to quarrel, but when they did it was always like this: with icy, brittle politeness. Meg would become stubborn and silent, Madame Giry distant and implacable. Sometimes Meg apologised. This would not be one of those times.

It made Christine want to scream. She could half-see herself grabbing Meg by the shoulders to spin her around and say, "This is your _mother_!" It made her think of Sweden, the stink of seaweed, the cold granite that was all that was left to her of her own family. The unfairness of it numbed her to the very tips of her fingers. People died. She knew that. Meg knew that. Her mother could come down with influenza, could be driven over by a cab, could be killed by some madman... The war was coming closer, maybe even to Paris, and Meg was fighting with her mother over this, over money. Christine thought she would give up all the money in the world for the chance to apologise to her father for the childish hurts she had done him, for every one of her silly complaints, for all the times she had pretended to pay her respects in the chapel but waited only for the Angel of Music.

She could not tell these things to Meg.

"Do you want coffee?" she asked more brusquely than she intended. She had to address the question to Meg's back where she stood on the bed.

"No." Meg gave the poster a final smoothing. When she turned around, her mouth was as small and hard as Madame Giry's became when she was upset. "Don't ask me to give this up, Christine. I won't. Not even for _maman_."

"I didn't ask," Christine said quietly.

She closed the door behind her and went to the parlour, turning down the lights in the corridor and the living-room as she passed. There was no sense wasting gas; she was no longer a child to be afraid of the dark. When she got to the piano, she lit the two lamps above it and found the letter where she had been forced to abandon it on the divan earlier that evening. There was a vocal line, piano... She ran her hand over the paper. It calmed her a little, even as it made her think of the chapel again, of the music in the walls. A single page. It was so easy to pretend the music came from an Angel, from a friend who knew her.

She picked out the first few bars with one hand, the notes rippling through silence like a handful of skipping stones. She had not played in a long time, but it was not a difficult piece, simpler than anything she might have expected from him. Christine moved the bench to the piano and played properly this time, letting herself see only the keys yielding to her touch, the black and white, alternating.

She forgot herself. The music was eerie, low; she followed it like the great turns of a spiral staircase. When she came to the abrupt unfinished line, she skipped right over the incomplete last bar and kept going, drawing out the theme he had been building, strengthening it, changing it subtly. She added Sweden, her father's violin, the whisper of waves in the winter fog. Once, she got up to fetch more paper and ink, put a line through the three bars that recalled the Moonlight Sonata and replaced them with an echo of the music in the chapel, a child's voice raised in counterpoint. They had sung the same melody at the tomb of her father, and she could not bear to be ashamed of it now.

"Do you know what _ein Lied_ means, little Angel?"

"Yes. _A Song_."

She crossed out the vocal line, all of it, with a fat wavy line of ink over all his hastily penned notes. Then she wrote a title across the top margin, changing the vowels around: _Ein Leid_. He would appreciate the variation, she thought. _A Sorrow_.

When Madame Giry came home, it was very late. Christine heard her making coffee in the kitchen, the muffled, light sound of her footsteps in the dining-room. If Meg came out to meet her, Christine did not hear it. She turned her head to the wall and thought of the music she had written. She wished she could have told her father about it.

o o o

"Chagny, stay put. Keep the men back."

Raoul gave a sign to Cloutier that he'd heard, and the lieutenant vanished again into the near-darkness. The men of their company remained where they were, down on one knee behind the barricade, apprehensive. Raoul crouched behind the pile of paving stones, rifle aimed at the end of the street. Further along the barricade were several Marines; grim battle-hardened men who knew what they were doing. Experienced troops who were not dropping with exhaustion were few, and for once Raoul was glad of it. It meant he was here, instead of with the rest of the army behind the walls of Sedan. Their orders were to hold the village and keep the Prussians from taking control of the only pass out of the valley. Raoul prayed silently that his numb, sweaty fingers would not slip on the trigger.

Time passed slowly as they waited. There was little talk; they were too nervous, too hungry, too sore from the march to waste the energy. Chatelin, a sullen kid from Paris, tried to roll a cigarette; Raoul snapped at him before he could light up. The kid made a crude gesture in response, but obeyed. Raoul did not push it. What authority he had over these green recruits came from his being singled out by the Emperor at Mouzon, and he knew it was tenuous. Even experienced officers were having trouble. There were other units in position closer to the river, Raoul strained his ears but could make out nothing from that direction. Perhaps the enemy were further away than they had thought.

He was not prepared when he saw them. One moment there was nothing, a quiet village, a barricade in the street. Then all at once a gunshot rang so loud Raoul nearly dropped the rifle, coming from somewhere near the river. A hundred more shots, dogs barking, shouted orders in French and German – they barely had time to load – then plumed Bavarian helmets were filling the street and chunks of plaster the size of books raining down on their heads, exploding on the cobbles, the air zinging with bullets.

"Fire!" bellowed the man next to him, a corporal, doing what Raoul knew was his own job. Raoul opened his mouth but no sound came out. All around, others were shooting into the night, hardly able to see enough to take aim.

He sighted at a silhouetted group of Bavarians ahead, braced himself. The gun was alive in this hands, shaking violently. A bullet ricocheted off a stone over his head. It clanged against something metal in the distance, and Raoul's hand spasmed on the trigger, almost accidentally. The rifle slammed back into his shoulder; one of the Bavarians went down heavily. He could not tell whether the bullet had been his. He reloaded.

"Hell!" swore Chatelin, and kept saying it with each shot, like an angry young judge condemning a line of convicts, his thin moustache moving as he took aim. "Hell, hell, hell." Two more Bavarians went down, one clutching his shoulder, but others came from behind them at a run. From the abandoned houses on either side of the barricade, General Reboul's Marines picked them off with rapid fire, but there were more coming, wave after wave.

The smoke thickened to pale grey, almost white, screening the street. Raoul fired indiscriminately now, on impulse, like the others. Everything stank of gunpowder and hot metal; they kept shooting at where they knew the Bavarians were, but could hardly see the man next to them. Above them, in the house which they had thought abandoned, a child began to cry. The high-pitched wail sawed through the noise of battle, discomfiting the soldiers, and it was so out of place there that for a few precious moments the shooting stopped. Raoul felt the others glancing up at the shutters even as he knew it was a mistake; in the next instant Chatelin shrieked in agony and lost his rifle.

Raoul slung his own gun back and dropped down beside him.

The young man was face-down on the cobbles, a black pool spreading around his head. Raoul seized his shoulders to turn him over, and felt himself falling, swaying back, faint with horror.

He had no jaw. The bullet had ripped right through his teeth and only a hinge of purple bone remained on the right side, wedged into red meat under his moustache. He was still alive. Raoul saw the whites of his eyes appear all around his widening pupils.

Then, mercifully, incredibly, he heard Cloutier's voice over the din:

"The park! Move on, Captain wants us to push them back!"

Raoul tore his gaze away from the dying man. The Bavarians had penetrated a barricaded street that led to Montvilliers park; if they seized it, they would as good as have the village.

"This way!" he called out, rising into the smoke that seared his eyes, trying to keep to what cover there was as he and the men struggled across the street. Somebody had broken down the door to the nearest house, where Marines were still firing from above. Raoul and the others ran through the carpeted corridor into some family's living-room, vaulting over armchairs, then out through the dark kitchen into the garden and the back street. Behind them, the barricade was already swarming with Bavarians, but they could not spare the men to defend it until the park was secure.

A shot tore straight through the opened house.

"Close the doors!" Raoul shouted, and two men ran to do just that. For a split second he saw the blue flash of a foreign uniform, and then, horribly, knew his order had been too late. Fool; he should have made them shut all the doors at once. The first man collapsed on the back stairs, his red-trousered leg turning dark. The other managed to slam the door, then crouched down beside the wounded soldier. Raoul hesitated.

"Let's go!" said the corporal, giving Raoul a shove in the back with his beefy palm as though he were not a commissioned officer but another of his young recruits. "The medics will get him; there's nothing we can do." Two men with a stretcher were already hurrying out of a nearby house.

Raoul ran after the others across the across the garden and the back street, climbing through a broken fence into one of the gardens on the other side. They had to get through the next line of houses. There was no sign of Bavarians in this little street yet, but that would not last.

The second garden was obviously well-tended; there were neatly raked paths, grape vines over the back wall of the house, young apple trees tied to stakes for support. It was the apple trees that stopped them. Soldiers clustered around, hunger momentarily more important than the battle, stronger than fear. With their bayonets, they knocked down the little red apples, eating them in two crunching bites.

"Lieutenant!" called one, and threw him a stolen apple.

It was looting, Raoul knew, but he ate the apple anyway, the juice wonderful in his parched throat, washing down the taste of metal and dust. He saw the house was still occupied, for washing had been hung out behind the kitchen window and the geraniums in the window-boxes were not dry, but all the windows were firmly shut and the heavy doors barred.

The men had started breaking down the back door, but Raoul called for them stop. He looked along the side of the house to where the ground rose up towards the park. In the grey morning light, the distance was still hidden by smoke.

"We'll go around."

For a moment he feared the soldiers would refuse to leave the shelter of this house, but when he led the way out onto the next street, they followed.

They emerged straight into chaos. The street was black with bodies and metal: no barricades, hardly any cover except what the fences and walls could provide. Nowhere to run. Before he could give an order, Raoul turned – and saw a skinny Bavarian taking aim.

He froze. The rifleman was as clear before him as an oncoming train. He had reddish hair and long drooping moustaches; his hands were steady and certain on his weapon. Behind him, a solid line of German bayonets was approaching like a tide, step by step.

The Bavarian's gloved hand squeezed the trigger. Raoul thought of Christine in Perros asking him if he played the violin, and started to laugh. He was going to die.

He did not expect the shot from above. As the skinny Bavarian collapsed, Raoul realised numbly that there must have been an open window in that house after all. Gasping, he turned to see a little attic room facing the street. A second shot from it made him whip around; another Bavarian fell. He could not see the man shooting above, but it had to be a civilian; the bullets came too infrequently for the gun to be a breech-loader of the sort soldiers carried.

Counting on the cover from the house, he tried to get his bearings and work out where his company was, how far they were from the park. He turned this way and that, searching for familiar faces.

A chunk of ice ripped through his side. Surprised, Raoul looked down at himself. A patch of fabric on his hip was missing. In the oval hole, he saw bone. Then his leg folded out from underneath him and he fell.

o o o

Erik ran, stumbling across the muddy open fields, no longer seeking cover, forgetting where the road was. Tears and snot leaked from his face, but his mouth was dry and bloody, his chest raw from the wind. Sedan was chock full of soldiers; by now they would be camped in town among the freshly mortared walls of his courthouse, ripping his precious scaffolding apart for firewood. If he turned he could see its medieval fortress beneath the low mass of clouds. Even higher were the hills all around the valley – and upon these were black dots by the thousand, lined up in formation like a diagram from a strategy book. They were Prussians, and there was more of them than Erik could have imagined, more men than he had ever seen in one place. They made the French column staggering into Sedan seem laughable. When they crested a rise he could see them taking up positions against the lead-coloured sky, encircling the valley, installing artillery on the high plateaus, tightening the noose.

If he remained in this place he would be strangled with the rest of them. Architect or no, he would never see Christine again, not even from afar, not even as a stranger on the street. Twice in his life he had been hunted, and twice he had evaded pursuit – but he had been guilty, he knew, he did not deny it. But now? To be caught now, when he had done nothing wrong?

He had to run. Once he reached the woods to the north, he could cross the border into Belgium.

He stopped abruptly and leaned his shoulder into a tree, breathing hard. The morning air was like razors in his throat, and his arm was sore from the weight of the rifle. A bugle played in the hills; the Prussians were moving. He had to keep going.

"I don't want you to go," Christine had said, in his lodgings in Montmartre.

Erik squeezed his eyes shut, but she was still there, in his head, in his body, in the ring hidden in his shirt pocket. He ground his knuckles into the rough bark. It did not help. In another moment he was running again, a fugitive, a piece of filth, not even a man.

He did not know how he lost his bearings. All he knew was that when he found himself in the same damn radish field he had left that very morning, it was not a surprise, and when he saw the dark church spire of Bazeilles ahead, all he felt was a low bubbling fury. Cowards ran away. What kind of coward could not even bring himself to do that?

It was this fury that propelled him through the town, through the fighting, the screaming bullets, as he slipped between Bavarians and French alike in his muddy trousers and shirt. The ground was littered with paving stones and debris; he leapt over them without looking, without pausing. He refused to see the corpses. Nobody could shoot him now, nobody could see him, he existed in a dimension their world could never touch. He was the Devil's Angel, the Opéra Child, the Ghost of Music, he was...

He was lost.

He came to a halt near a fence. This was somebody's garden but he had no idea to whom it belonged. The fence had been smashed; most of the windows in the house were bolted shut. _Bravo_, he thought. In a town of some fifty houses, where he had lived for nearly a month, he could not find a single familiar wall or a street corner. He was losing his mind.

A gun went off right behind him, followed by an agonised shriek.

Erik turned around slowly. It took an effort of will, as if the sooty air resisted his movement. He recognised this street now, but that was of no consequence.

He had heard that scream before. It was impossible that he should hear it again, here, now, yet it there it was again, as solid as a blade pressed to his throat or a heavy rope in his hands.

With no regard for the soldiers running, shooting among the ruined barricades, he stepped out into the street. He did not hurry. He walked forward with his back erect, not seeking cover, stepping over corpses as if he was the patron god of this place and nothing dared touch him.

"Ah," he said at last. "So it is. Monsieur the Vicomte de Chagny." The noise of bullets masked his voice.

The man who had tried to take Christine from him sat on the cobbles with his body contorted into a monstrous knot over his extended right leg. He was no longer screaming. Erik would never have recognised him in his muddy officer's uniform had it not been for that first sound.

Perhaps the Vicomte had felt someone standing over him, for he craned his head up and stared at Erik with bloodshot eyes, dim with pain. The movement exposed the dark blood pulsing out from between his fingers where he clenched his trouser leg. The gaps in the cobbles were filling up with red.

"You're... Opera Ghost..."

"The same. And you are dying."

The Vicomte's shock was lost in his pain-contorted features, but to give the man his due, he continued to cling to awareness. The army must be truly desperate if they were taking pups like Christine's would-be protector.

Erik lowered himself to one knee, avoiding the blood. With the butt of his rifle, he sent the Vicomte's gun skidding out of his reach.

"My... gun," the Vicomte ground out. The effort made veins stand out on his aristocratic forehead. Erik had to lean in and shout to be heard over the noise of battle, but he would have dearly loved to stand tall over him now:

"You have no further use for it, Vicomte."

"You want ... to kill me. Now ... it's easy."

"It was always easy," Erik said contemptuously, but he could not help a tremor of revulsion at the memory of sharp steel at his throat.

The young Vicomte gave a sharp, ugly little laugh. In the face of a dying man, this laugh was a horror Erik could not have imagined, worse than the bubbling last breath of the stagehand in his lair.

"We are both dead," the Vicomte said, and his voice was suddenly clear, as if the pain had gone. "Look up there, Phantom."

Erik raised his eyes. The attic window was a little black square high above the roiling mass of men, and against its frame rested the barrel of a hunting gun exactly like his own. Egrot's house.

Even as the gun swivelled towards him, Erik refused to believe what he could plainly see. It was not Egrot reloading it. It was his wife.

Pauline Egrot's hair was down around her shoulders over the gun in her thin hands, making her seem a mad, feral creature, something he might have seen in a neighbouring cage at the circus. She still wore her dressing-gown.

She tilted the gun until it pointed square at his face. She was going to kill him.


	31. The Prodigal

Lots more Erik in this chapter. Thanks so much for your reviews, guys, it's very helpful to me to know how what I write is being received and understood. Every one makes my day!

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**Chapter 31 – The Prodigal**

There was no time to think. Erik wrenched the Vicomte's arm up and heaved him backwards like a sandbag shield between himself and the gun. Freed from the force of his hand, the Vicomte's barely staunched wound spurted anew. He howled, mingled rage and pain, loud enough to drown out the roar of battle, and his blood leaked down onto Erik's trousers in a quick, sickeningly warm drip.

Madame Egrot's gun was aimed at them. The Vicomte's howl became a low moan, then stopped. Erik felt him begin to slip down and tightened his grip until his fingers were claws, until he was half-choking on the stink of the Vicomte's sweat and the coppery heat of his blood. The abyss of a remembered nightmare yawned open beneath him; it took all his strength not to fall.

Madame Egrot did not shoot.

Erik saw her look away from the gun that was now aimed at a fallen French officer, the steel barrel shuddering in her thin arms as though she had been struck with palsy. Perhaps she thought of her son in the army. At last, mercifully, the gun disappeared. The window was dark.

Erik let go the Vicomte's shoulder, and he tumbled down onto the dusty cobbles like a puppet and lay still.

Perhaps he was dead. Erik stared at his would-be corpse and a powerful sense of déjà vu swept over him, as though in a labyrinth he had come upon a path he recognised. He recalled how Christine had surged forward towards the lake only to stop, appalled, as the rope dropped from his hand onto the Vicomte's white neck. When she turned her eyes to him, her pupils had been black as death, and the monster Erik had seen reflected there was himself.

A volley of bullets whizzed through the front garden of Egrot's house before them, hitting the wooden door. The Bavarians were across the street.

This was madness, Erik thought, even as he gathered up the Vicomte's limp body onto his back like a heavy meat carcass, dislodging the gun he carried, even as he lurched, spurred by terror, towards that same door.

He had no idea what he was doing. Every part of his brain screamed at him to run, but he plunged doggedly onward. A bullet ripped through the shrubbery and sang past his cheek, so close that he thought it would slice clear through the bandage. For a wonder, the door was unlocked. Erik never knew how he managed to keep hold of the Vicomte's body while he negotiated the stairs to the porch, or how he succeeded in closing and bolting the door behind him.

He let his burden slide to the floor – and saw the reason for the unlocked door. Madame Egrot had descended the stairs, intending to come outside. She had been reaching for the door, but now she backed away and held up the gun across her chest with both bony hands, the way she might have raised a candlestick against a thief.

"Don't shoot." Erik did not have the breath to raise his voice.

Madame Egrot looked down from him to the body of the officer on the floor. Beneath the Vicomte's hip, the worn carpet was slowly turning red. Someone shouted outside; Erik saw her eyes flick to the door.

"I locked it," he answered her unspoken question. The bloodstain under the body continued to spread. "The Vi... This officer is wounded."

Madame Egrot made no move to help. Erik stared at her, feeling nauseous and dizzy in the sudden confines of the dark house.

"He's wounded!" he bellowed, surprising even himself.

She blanched and clutched the gun harder, as if that would save her. Erik moved towards her. He was no longer aware of anything except the spreading blood behind him, creeping up on him:

"He is bleeding to death! Do you understand me? He is going to die!"

"You swine," she spoke quickly, backing away from him, "you lying, cowardly – you... My husband is too ill to be moved and there're Germans at the door and you bring my son's own gun here... How dare you touch it! How dare you!"

"He is going to _die_. Get the maid. Now."

"Rachel is tending to my husband!"

"Then damn you, tend to this one yourself!" Leaping forward, Erik grabbed the gun from her and tossed it to the floor where it skidded against an armchair. Madame Egrot was hysterical; Erik snatched the shawl from her shoulders and thrust it into her clutching hands:

"There, now bind his wound!"

She sank to her knees. Erik thought she had fainted, but she half-crawled towards the body and pressed the bulk of the shawl against the Vicomte's wounded hip. Twisting the rest of the fabric, she wound it over his thigh and pulled the knot tight. Then she rocked back on her heels and clenched her hands to her mouth, as if to stop herself from crying.

Erik stared at the result. The shawl made a crooked bandage that was already turning red, but not as fast as he had anticipated. Perhaps that meant the Vicomte would live. Or perhaps he was already near death, and there was no more blood to lose.

"There are bandages and lint in the kitchen," Madame Egrot said quietly, without turning around. "You can take him to the cellar. Then you can go away."

Erik hesitated. "Your husband will live."

"My husband..." Madame Egrot stood up with difficulty, her hands pulling at her unkempt hair. She looked haggard and old. "He trusted you. After you disappeared last time, he said, Andersson must have been a soldier in Algiers or Mexico, they can be strange afterwards. It isn't true, is it."

"He will live," Erik repeated.

"You liar! You leave my husband for dead but you carry this boy through the bullets – why? Why him!"

Something metal banged against the closed door, making the hinges groan. "You should hide in the cellar," Erik said forcefully, even as Madame Egrot picked up her gun again.

"What is he to you?" She motioned at the body of the Vicomte. He was as waxen as a corpse, and his wound was no longer bleeding.

"We fought together," Erik heard himself say. It was almost true.

A bullet smashed an upstairs window, sending a shower of glass down outside the door.

"The cellar, Madame Egrot. Unless you mean to die here."

"Pauline!" Erik heard Egrot's voice from upstairs. "Pauline! Are you down there? Are you hurt?"

Madame Egrot hefted her gun and rushed back up the stairs. Erik heard her calling up to Egrot that she was all right, that she was on her way.

He was left alone with his folly. There were Bavarians just outside, the rattle of German orders and German guns was now near-constant. If they caught sight of the idiot woman shooting upstairs, they would storm the house. He could still make it out alive, perhaps, via the back door into the garden.

He glanced down at the Vicomte's slack face. With revulsion, he picked up the heavy body, balancing as best he could, and wended his way through the living-room into the kitchen. The trapdoor was open. The cellar below was a black grave; the damp musty smell hit Erik's face like a fist. Gritting his teeth and cursing, he struggled down the ladder, then pulled the Vicomte down after him, trying his best not to jar the wound. He carried him through the hidden niche.

In the second cellar, the Vicomte opened his eyes.

Erik barely kept from dropping the body. The Vicomte did not scream or speak a word, even as Erik lowered him to the earthen floor and stepped back. What faint light trickled in through the opened trapdoor above the outer cellar was presumably insufficient for the Vicomte's eyes, and for a while he stared blindly in a sort of stupid shock.

"I'm dead."

"Not yet," Erik said. He saw how his voice struck the other man's face with horror.

"Phantom!"

"Vicomte."

"Where am I? Why are.. Ohhh," he made a low sound so full of pain that Erik had to step back. He wanted nothing more than to turn and run. He forced himself to search for the lamp Egrot kept hidden here somewhere under a bench.

"My leg," the Vicomte groaned. "What have you done?.."

"If I were you, I'd conserve my energies, monsieur. Your last heroic effort nearly cost you your life."

"What have you done to me? I can't see!" His face contorted in a grimace of pain. Panic crept into his voice.

"That is because you are in a cellar, my dear Vicomte. A dark, damp cellar beneath the ground." Erik's searching hand finally closed on the lamp. He laughed without humour. "Welcome to my world."

The Vicomte did not reply, and Erik turned to see that he was weeping, fighting agony.

"There is a lamp here," Erik said grudgingly. "But I must to go back up to get matches."

"I have... matches... My pocket."

Erik watched him trying to reach for the pocket of his army jacket. It was pathetic. He left him to his efforts, and went back up to the kitchen to get matches and the bandages Madame Egrot had mentioned, along with scissors, a pitcher of water and a bowl. If the Vicomte was determined to survive, he supposed he should at least be given a chance to wash out that wound before it festered.

To Erik's surprise, the lamp had been lit by the time he returned. The Vicomte was slumped next to the bench, breathing shallowly. There was a dark smear on the floor where he had dragged his leg.

"Bandages," Erik said tersely. It annoyed him that the Vicomte just nodded silently over his injury instead of babbling and weeping and fainting again. He tossed the bandages down on the bench near the lamp.

The Vicomte managed to cut away the fabric of his trouser leg around the wound, then dampened Madame Egrot's shawl and removed it. Even at the sight of the bloodied hole in his thigh, he only cursed and hissed in pain. Evidently he was determined not to lose consciousness again. Erik watched his clumsy efforts for a while, before exasperation made him pour the water into the bowl himself and pass it to the Vicomte.

In tense silence, the Vicomte washed the wound. Erik listened for the sound of fighting outside, but all was quiet. If the Bavarians had started to storm the house, he could not hear it.

"She didn't shoot you," he heard the Vicomte say. He glanced down, but the sight of the bloodied bandages did not agree with his gut; he sought something else to draw his attention. The lamp sent bizarre shapes leaping across the opposite wall.

"That ... woman," the Vicomte persisted. One would think he kept himself talking to pretend he was not in pain.

"Yes. You made an excellent shield, Vicomte. Fortunately for you, Madame Egrot chose not to shoot an officer."

The Vicomte appeared to ignore this. Erik risked a glance down; the fool was reaching for the bandage.

"I suggest you pack that first. With the lint. Yes, that."

Erik looked away again as the Vicomte struggled with lint and bandages. For some reason he was reminded of Vincent Fiaux, the young engineer, leaving the office after he was conscripted, walking with a jaunty bounce in his step and his hands thrust into his pockets.

"It comes as something of a surprise to find you in the army, Vicomte. I had thought that pretty masquerade costume was a show."

"And I had thought your mask and hair real," the Vicomte countered. "It seems both of us were mistaken – Erik."

Erik could not help it; he felt the shock of his own name being wielded by this boy, this former enemy, and he knew that the Vicomte had looked up in that moment deliberately, to see the sharp fear in his face.

"So Christine was right. You have a man's name after all. Have you also a man's honour, then?"

Erik could barely think for the blood rushing to his head. Christine had spoken to her fiancé about him? She had told him his name?

"Why did you save me?"

"You are lying," Erik cut him off. "Christine told you nothing."

"She had not meant to tell me," the Vicomte admitted. He hacked with the scissors at the end of the bandage and held his palm flat to his hip, as though to draw the pain away. His trembling body was soaked in perspiration, and for a moment Erik felt almost sorry for him. He looked close to collapse.

"Why did you save me?" Erik saw the question was real; it burned in the Vicomte's feverish eyes. Perhaps it was all that kept him awake. "I don't know why you're here, but... You could have ... left me to die."

Erik rose. "If the Bavarians come, I advise you to scream very loudly. I just might hear."

"Where are you going? Phantom!"

Ignoring him, Erik left the cellar and climbed back out into the kitchen. He considered closing the trapdoor, then felt a flush of anger at the thought. It was beneath him. The Vicomte may think he did not have a man's honour, but he would not leave him to die in the darkness.

He took the stairs two at a time, and was in the attic before he could determine what exactly he was intending to do there. It was full daylight now, and sunlight streamed into the room through the little window, revealing clouds of dust and gunpowder. The sounds of battle were no longer coming from directly below, but carried from either end of the street.

Egrot was lying on a straw mattress on the floor near the window, with a bandage around his head. His wife was beside him; her gun left forgotten near the window. The maid was nowhere in sight.

"Andersson..." Egrot called, spotting him when he emerged from the stairs into the daylight. "Pauline told me you had returned."

Erik elected not to hear the implied invitation to explain himself.

"She also said that – you brought back a former army mate?"

One look at Madame Egrot was sufficient to assure Erik that unlike her husband, she did not believe a word of it. She knew he was no soldier. Her mouth was tight with anger.

"I left him downstairs in your new cellar, Egrot. Where you had best join him."

Egrot studied him for a while from beneath his bandage. How odd, Erik thought, that he should cause another man to wear a mask like his own. There was a disquieting wrongness about it, about the sight of Egrot lying prone with his head bandaged and the split skin that must be hidden underneath. Fresh from confronting the Vicomte's wound, Erik did not wish to think about yet more blood.

He had never come back to see what it looked like, before. There had always been somebody else to clean things up. He did not like this at all.

"Well, don't just stand there," Egrot said genially, yet with no more genuine friendliness in his voice than he would have afforded a casual acquaintance. "It is good that you returned; my wife can use the help."

Erik nodded, accepting the truce. He went to the window. Despite the daylight, the smoke hanging over the town made it difficult to see much further than the Place d'Eglise. What he could see of the square was overrun with the tiny shapes of Bavarians.

"How far have they got?" Egrot asked from his mattress.

"At least as far as the square." Then, driven by what he could only think of as compassion, he turned to Madame Egrot:

"Help me carry him downstairs, madame."

"Do not take me for a log!" Egrot exploded. "There will be no talk of carrying me anywhere. Take that gun, Andersson, or prop me up and let me at them!"

"There is nobody down there," Erik began, but just then a dozen Marines gave the lie to his words. They ran out onto the street, rifles at the ready. One stumbled over a corpse; there were other bodies strewn across the cobbles where the Vicomte had fallen earlier. Almost immediately, one of the Marines fell. More shots echoed, and Erik realised a new wave of Bavarians was rolling this way. Unlike the Marines, they looked neither dusty nor exhausted; their helmets gleamed in the light. These had to be reinforcements.

"You load it like this." Madame Egrot had come up silently behind him and now stood holding up her own gun and a new cartridge.

Erik watched her demonstrate this. He knew Egrot was watching too, and that this was certain to convince him that no former soldier such as he supposed Erik to be would have needed this instruction. Perhaps that was why Madame Egrot did it. Yet Erik thanked her with deliberate politeness. Let them think what they would. He had not needed to come back. He could have been approaching Belgium and safety by now.

He loaded, and took aim.

The first two shots went wide, and the third succeeded only in alerting the first of the ranked Bavarians to the location of his gun. The next one, however, hit one of their officers in the neck, cutting short an order.

Madame Egrot made a small sound of triumph. Erik thought he had dropped the gun, but he hadn't; he was reloading even as he thought he should go away now, that he did not need to be here. The stricken officer was gurgling in the street below. Erik did not look. He reloaded and fired. Another went down.

It was so simple. The gun was old and inaccurate but he could compensate; it took only a few shots to work out that he had to aim slightly to the left of his target, and he quickly learned to brace his shoulder for the rebound shock. It was ridiculously easy to squeeze the trigger and fell the explosion rip through the steel and launch lead through the air, through flesh. It was all so much easier than the rope, so much faster and cleaner and he didn't have to look...

But he looked anyway. He watched the men go down, a spectator outside his own body counting the uniforms on the corpses filling the street. Egrot was saying something behind him, but he could not hear him for the cracking of gunpowder. A Bavarian screamed and a shot ricocheted off the windowframe, shooting splinters past Erik's face. More kept coming, scattering through the street, getting closer. Erik fired.

He did not want to stop. He felt he was standing at the top of a great tower, with all the mobs of the world below him, and from here he could keep them all back. Some tried to fire into the attic, but it meant they had to squint into the bright white sky to aim, and Erik had the advantage of height. He picked them off. It was easy.


	32. The Defence

The battle of Bazeilles continues. Please take a moment to leave a review, you'll make my day!

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**Chapter 32 – The Defence**

The pain sewed through Raoul's side like a thread pulled by a needle, jabbing him sharply then abating to a hot dull ache, jabbing again. For a time he could only hover on the edge of awareness. Perhaps he slept, or perhaps he merely drifted on the ebb and flow of pain, counting his heartbeats. It was impossible to tell in the dark. The lamp had burnt out. Vivid colours swam before his eyes, but if the shapes they formed were dreams, he could not decipher their meaning. He desperately wanted water.

This was a cellar. He knew that much, but he could not recall how he had come to be here, nor how much time had passed since he had fallen in the street. Memory played tricks on him: one moment he was firing into the dusty street from behind a barricade, the next he was outside a café in Paris on a hot July evening, anxious of losing Christine in the crowd surging and bubbling through the doors. Then Christine caught sight of someone on the pavement and stopped. There, before Raoul's eyes, her face transformed: her eyes grew dark and strange, the colour rose in her cheeks, her lips parted. A faint blush crept over her skin. It was almost obscene, except that Raoul had never seen her more beautiful, and when she called out – "Erik!" – he had known whom she meant even before he, too, saw a creature with a bandaged face vanish in the crowd. He could not forget Christine's expression afterwards as she turned to him, the twin flames of fear in her eyes.

The sound of approaching footsteps gave him a jolt. A dazzling yellow light near-blinded him and he saw a dark-haired girl holding a candle. Slowly she came closer, until she was standing over him.

"Christine?.." Raoul whispered.

The candle jumped. "No, monsieur. Begging your pardon. I'm Rachel, I'm the maid."

"Oh." Raoul tried to focus. This was not Christine; that had been a momentary illusion. In his delirium he was starting to see things: the Phantom, now Christine... He was so thirsty.

"Forgive me." Raoul forced the words out with his dry tongue. His whole body was throbbing. "I must have ... been asleep, mademoiselle. I took you... for a friend I left... in Paris."

He made an effort to sit up. His head felt too heavy to lift, and he only managed to roll onto his good side and prop himself up on his elbow. Even this small movement set his hip on fire. The plump housemaid in her servant's dress and stained apron looked nothing like Christine; of course not. Next he would believe the Phantom had indeed brought him here. The girl lit the lamp and stood back, wary of the stinking, bloodied soldier.

"I brought you some food, sir. It's only cold; I couldn't light the fire on account of the fighting, but it's as good as what they are having upstairs. Will you eat?"

Raoul thanked her, emboldening the girl to set down the tray she was holding. To his immense relief, she picked up the pitcher and started filling a cup; clean water tumbled into it like diamonds, cool and wonderful. Raoul could barely restain his impatience until she finally passed it to him. He drank deep draughts, feeling the water rush into every part of his body, into his arms and legs, restoring him a little. She poured two more cups before he could stop to speak the question in his mind.

"How did I come to be here?"

"Madame said you are Monsieur Andersson's friend," the girl offered as she cut the cold meat on the tray. She passed him the plate.

Raoul had no idea who this Andersson was, but the sight of meat and bread made him aware of the raging hunger that had lurked under his thirst and drove all questions from his mind. Even his throbbing hip ceased to matter when he bit into the meat and felt the texture of each individual fibre on his tongue, the slight tang of bay leaves and onion. It had been days since he had eaten anything other than the hard biscuit and potatoes that made up their marching rations.

It was only after he had washed the food down with a bit of wine that it struck him that something strange was going on. Why was he being offered meat and even wine? In his time with the army he had seen how farmers barred their doors to half-starved soldiers, afraid to encourage looting. Even in the towns, Raoul had never been offered food except grudgingly. Yet here he was apparently being treated to the same meal the master of the house was having upstairs... He passed his empty plate to the maid, stretching his side painfully.

"You are generous, mademoiselle." He made it a question.

"They are still fighting outside." A slight tremor crept into her voice. "Might be, we'll be feeding the Germans tomorrow."

"Better one of us than them, then."

The girl looked offended. "I mean to say, there's no rainy day to save for. They've been at it since dawn. Nearly broke into the house, twice. Here they come again, hear that?" She glanced back the way she had come, as though expecting to see Bavarian guns streaming into the cellar.

Only then did Raoul become aware of the muffled sounds of battle. From here, the guns were no louder than the crackle of logs in a fire, but they indeed seemed to be getting closer. What was he doing in here when the battle went on outside? He had to rejoin his regiment. Quickly, he groped around the earthen floor and realised in dismay that he no longer had his gun. Whoever had carried him here must have left it behind. Apprehension made him sick.

"How long have I been here?"

"Most of the day – it was not yet ten when Monsieur Andersson brought you in, and it's just gone five."

"Five o'clock! I can't stay here, I must get back."

The girl looked at his hip mistrustfully. "You can't walk, monsieur."

Raoul tried to stand, levering himself up against the bench, and at once discovered she was right. The moment he put weight on his leg, the pain shot from his hip down to his heel and up to his shoulder. He cried out sharply, and saw a new bloom of red on the bandage.

"Tut, sir, you'll make it worse with your moving about. And all the same there's no way to leave the house now, not with Monsieur Andersson shooting above."

Could it be somebody from the regiment then, Raoul thought, using the house for cover upstairs? If he was a superior officer, he could report to him instead of trying to seek out the others in the chaos of battle. Yet he seemed to remember looking up at this house from the garden below and thinking the man shooting was a civilian... Unless this was a different house? Raoul frowned, and decided to confess.

"Forgive me, but – I can recall no Monsieur Andersson in my regiment."

"But he isn't from your regiment," the girl said in consternation. "Leastwise, I don't think he is. It's Monsieur Erik Andersson, you know, the architect. From Sedan. Though I suppose you might not know, seeing as you're not from around here." She went on to explain something about a new courthouse in Sedan, but Raoul was still caught up in the first part:

"Erik. _Erik_ Andersson?"

The girl nodded. "Your friend," she reminded him. "You're hurt, monsieur. You should rest. I'll come back if there's any news." She picked up the tray and her candle and went out. Raoul heard her climb up a ladder somewhere out of sight.

He let his head drop back against the bench. Monsieur Erik Andersson. Raoul refused to believe it. He could not afford to believe it; if he did, he would have to assume that the wild incoherent memories of the Phantom bringing him to this house were true. The Phantom was here. He couldn't be here, it was impossible. But he had been outside the café in Paris, in July, hiding behind bandages and a gentleman's suit... Raoul's thoughts whirled and tangled against one another. He could not believe it.

Painfully, he dragged himself up until he was half-sitting on the bench. His right leg was a dead weight as if he had slept on it, and his hip and thigh were swollen tight almost to the knee. Panting with the effort, Raoul managed to loosen the bandage a little. It took several attempts to stand on his good leg, and even then he had to lean on the wall for balance. He thought he might be able to hobble if he could find something to use as a crutch, but the cellar was full of boxes and nothing suitable presented itself. He was forced to half-stagger, half-slide along the bench and the floor towards the doorway.

The battle was more audible from the outer cellar. Raoul could distinguish voices, shots and then the sound of broken glass. It was darker here, as he had not been able to take the lamp, but a square of thin light marked the trapdoor above. He picked a rake from among some gardening tools lined up against the wall and tested to see if it would hold his weight. It did. It made an awkward crutch without a handle, but it was better than nothing at all. Raoul propelled it up the ladder ahead of himself then followed, pulling his body up by his arms and catching each step with his good leg. Right at the top he slipped, and for a split second had a vivid image of himself landing square on his hip, tearing flesh. His foot caught a step before he could fall.

He was lucky. He sat on the kitchen floor above, his hands flat on the cool wood, trying not to look at the bandage. He could feel the blood still seeping into it, and when he moved to stand, a smear of it was left behind on the floorboards. A bullet slammed into the wall, right outside.

The rake proved little use in negotiating the stairs from the dining room beyond the kitchen, and on the first landing Raoul discarded it. He could hear someone firing above, the click of the cock followed by the gunpowder charge exploding, and what sounded like two voices, a man and a woman. The man's voice was alternately frightened and soothing; it did not sound familiar. Raoul gripped the banister, dragged himself up, pulled again. The muscles of his arms burned and trembled with the effort.

He all but fell into the attic above. Pain pounded through his side, whipping up a frenzied assault on his head and his senses. He could not feel his arms at all, and his vision pulsed red and black.

"Good God!" somebody exclaimed; a woman holding a hunting-rifle. She was crouching beside a mattress, with a tray of half-eaten food and an open box of cartridges at her feet. Raoul heard her as through a red fog. "Monsieur, what are you doing! How did you get up here?"

Raoul could not spare the energy to answer. There was a man with a bandaged head lying on a mattress. The side of his head was brown with blood. No, Raoul thought, that isn't him. His eyes travelled up until he found the small window, the same one he had seen from the street. A man in shirtsleeves and muddy boots was aiming a rifle. He fired; a German began screaming outside. The woman forgot about Raoul; quick as a mouse, she passed him the gun she had been holding, exchanging it for his, and immediately reached for a new cartridge to reload it. The man took the loaded gun without looking.

"Andersson," Raoul said. The foreign name was no more strange than this place itself, and even as the man turned around, Raoul knew he was right. The Phantom's masked, bandaged face stared back at him. Motes of sulphurous dust flickered around his rifle.

Raoul saw how the woman and her husband watched them. The Phantom straightened his back. He held a loaded rifle. Raoul held nothing, not even the useless rake he had dumped downstairs. This was the man who had strung him up by the neck, forcing Christine to see it.

Raoul said, "I'm alive."

Nothing in the Phantom's face changed to indicate that he heard. Raoul saw that under his filthy matted hair, his eyes were hollow. No hatred, no madness remained, nothing living. Raoul had not feared the gun, but there was something about this hollow-eyed stare that raised the hairs on the back of his neck.

Outside, three bullets slammed into the wall in quick succession, spraying plaster. The Phantom did not move. Raoul heaved himself closer to the window and then caught his breath.

"Let me have the other gun," he begged the woman by the mattress. "Please."

She had set the second rifle by the window within easy reach; the Phantom now glanced at it as though he had forgotten it was there. Then he kicked it with the toe of his boot.

Raoul stopped the rifle before it could spin away from him. With a final effort, he lunged towards the window. The gun was loaded; the Bavarians were still below. Three of them had climbed into the front garden and were running towards the door; another moment and they would enter the house.

Without thinking, Raoul sank to his good knee, lined up the shot and fired. He fumbled with the gun, trying to reload it, then fired again. It was only after the second shot that he realised the Phantom was doing the same. A Bavarian's shoulder directly below him burst apart in a red epaulette; he dropped his needle gun. The two others were already down, their limbs angled oddly in the grass. One was an officer, a lieutenant like Raoul.

"You're a fool," Raoul heard the Phantom's voice beside him, low enough to be almost a growl. "If you had stayed below you might have lived."

"I _will_ live."

The Phantom said nothing more, but accepted more cartridges from the woman and fired into the street. Raoul glanced back at the couple, the terrified husband muttering something and the wife with her unkempt hair. He wanted to ask them what they knew of this man, how he had wormed his way into their confidence. It was his duty to tell them they harboured a murderer.

He looked at the rifle in his hands, then at the fallen bodies below. He said nothing, but turned around, adjusted the rifle sash against his shoulder, and took aim again.

The heart of the battle was somewhere away from here, closer to the park, but Bavarian units continued to appear on the Sedan road, and there were barely enough Marines to repulse them. Raoul lost all sense of time and place. His wound became a separate agony, unconnected to his body. The man at his shoulder might have been any other soldier; the windowsill any other barricade. Between the two guns, they could loose two or three rounds each minute if they had to, but there would not be enough ammunition to sustain that and they fired like snipers, taking the greatest care to aim well. Raoul got used to seeing men when he sighted down his gun; he barely flinched now at the recoil. This would not be enough to push back a real charge if the Bavarians thought to storm them in earnest, but thus far they held their ground. The hunting rifles had neither the range nor the power of Raoul's discarded chassepôt. He thought he could see it down there in the dust, and he dreaded that some Bavarian would pick it up.

Dusk was gathering when the man beside him spoke. It had grown quieter outside, the black smoke in the direction of the church spoke of desperate attempts to finish the battle by nightfall. Somebody had set a building on fire; Raoul could smell charcoal on the wind.

"They're falling back. It's too dark to shoot, Vicomte. Your army is going to hold the town tonight."

It took a moment for the import of the words to sink in. Raoul came to himself, gasping as his wound flared again in full force, as though it had been lying in wait for him.

"They're falling back," the Phantom repeated more loudly, for the benefit of the couple behind them.

Raoul felt the gun fall from his hands onto the floor as he slid against the wall. The room spun briefly, making him queasy. His hands were black with oil from the rifle. There were more bodies outside than he cared to see.

The injured man was asleep on the mattress, his wife sat beside him with her head on her folded arms. When the Phantom spoke, she looked up as though she scarcely believed it.

"The Bavarians are leaving?"

"No," Raoul said, "They'll be back tomorrow."

"But they are leaving now?" The woman's pale face flicked between him and the Phantom, seeking reassurance. The Phantom lifted the sash of the rifle over his head and held it before him with both hands on the stock, as though he would lean on it. He swayed slightly.

"It's as the Vicomte said," he muttered. "They will be back. With reinforcements."

Raoul looked over at the Phantom and saw his bandage had slipped. The last pale sunlight that cut almost horizontally through the window outlined the knot of scars near his nose.

The man on the mattress stirred and sat up, grimacing. He checked the cartridge box, then craned his neck to look up at the Phantom. "We have twenty rounds left, Andersson. That's all. If they come back, we die here."

"They will come back." The Phantom's voice was emotionless; whether with exhaustion or with something else, Raoul could not tell.

"I'll go out there when it gets dark," Raoul heard himself offer. "There are plenty of guns there. And the Bavarians will have cartridges. The medics will not take them."

The woman and her husband both gasped. Phantom half-turned towards him. "Robbing the dead, Vicomte?"

Raoul had no answer for him, nor did the man seem to expect one – but as he looked at the Phantom's badly masked face with its bandage askew, a slow horror began at the base of Raoul's spine and spread upwards like a tide of ice. He was weeping. Droplets formed in the corners of his hollow eyes, and crept down his unshaven cheek.

As though he was completely unaware of his own tears, the Phantom merely scowled at Raoul's scrutiny and then gave a small shrug:

"If you think you can get outside with that leg, Vicomte, and avoid being shot like a turkey by the snipers who will no doubt remain through the night – then by all means, try. But don't suppose I will carry you a second time."

The man on the mattress tried to object, but Raoul interrupted him.

"I don't," he said. He observed the tears rolling down the Phantom's cheeks and the man's utter unawareness of it with a sort of morbid fascination. There was something less than human in this disconnect, as though the Phantom was no longer entirely aware of himself. The crooked mask only added to that impression. Finally, Raoul could stand it no longer.

"Your mask," he said.

The Phantom lifted a hand to his face and felt the gap that left his scars visible to all. Raoul expected him to tug it into place, but he merely stretched his lips in disdain.

"Your leg, Vicomte."

Raoul looked down at himself. His hip was bleeding again. The movement when he turned from the window must have torn the wound anew. He tried to adjust the bandage.

"I will call for Rachel," the woman announced, as though she had now decided to assume the role of a hostess. "We will have dinner."

"An excellent idea," her husband chimed in.

Raoul raised his head and met the Phantom's gaze. The mask was in place and the tears were gone.

"Yes," the Phantom said, "food would be most welcome, Madame Egrot." When she had gone downstairs, he lowered his voice so that only Raoul heard the rest.

"Well, Vicomte. How does it feel to be a murderer?"

Raoul flushed with disgust. "I am no murderer."

The Phantom did not argue. He glanced at Monsieur Egrot, who was watching the exchange between them with no sign of following it, then at the two rifles on the floor between them. He fingered something in the pocket of his shirt, then simply leaned back against the wall and shut his eyes.


	33. Being Yourself

Thanks for your support, guys. I hope you're still enjoying the story! Much thanks to LadyKate (and her violinist father) for help with music theory.

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**Chapter 33 – Being Yourself**

The polished wood of the rifle stock buzzed in Erik's tired hands, as though he was holding some peculiar musical instrument after a long recital. He tried to believe it, and could not. His shoulder was bruised from the gun's recoil. His clothes reeked of gunpowder. He needed a bath. The Egrots were asking questions, moving things about, creaking up and down the floor. The maid set to changing the wounded Vicomte's bandages while he moaned through his teeth and beat his hands against the bare wooden floor. It was all so ugly. Evening advanced, draping its black crepe of smoke and shadows. Kill them now, Erik thought. He dangled the idea before himself like a rope, testing whether it held any appeal. Kill them and escape. What difference would four more bodies make?

He did not want to kill them. He did not want to have killed anyone at all, not Bavarians, not Prussians, not even drunken old Buquet. He wanted a bed, a room, an architect's sketchbook covered in green velvet, Christine's shoes by the foot of their bed, the smell of her hair, her sleepy voice calling his name. He wanted these things so much they stuck in his throat. But damn it, what he was going to get was more death, death without count, distant, ugly, faceless murder. Perhaps it was not murder for the Vicomte. Perhaps if you were born into silken sheets with a family crest, killing was the work of a hero, and women adored the sight of a bloodied uniform. Perhaps the Vicomte would return to Paris and Christine would love him again, love him all the more for his bravery.

In two long strides Erik crossed the attic to where the Vicomte lay stretched out on the mattress Egrot had vacated. Having proclaimed himself sufficiently recovered to leave his bed, the master of the house was helping his wife to drag the trunk in the centre of the room to make a table for their supper. Erik glanced in their direction, but they paid him no mind. He squatted beside the Vicomte. He did not bother with preliminaries.

"What are you doing in Bazeilles?"

The Vicomte rolled his eyes up to try to see Erik. The whites glinted like bone in the dark. "Fighting," he said tersely.

Erik wondered that he did not ask the maid for more wine to dull the pain. "Men of your class are not conscripted."

"I am... an officer. Commissioned." He spoke in short gasps, swallowing half his words.

"Ah. You father bought a place."

"I have... own... money. It's... of no concern... to you."

Madame Egrot had thrown a starched white tablecloth over the old trunk, a ridiculous little scrap of domestic comfort. Egrot was helping her tuck the corners under. Glancing down, Erik saw the Vicomte was watching them too.

"You think your uniform will impress her, Vicomte? You'll come home covered in glory and bandages and Christine will fling herself into your arms?"

"No," the Vicomte replied quietly and, Erik could not help hearing, sadly. "She will not. Let me be, Anders... Andersson. Please."

"Admit you're a murderer," Erik said. "Say it."

"It isn't... murder. They're... soldiers. Like... me."

"It's death."

"Yes," the Vicomte said. He raised his eyes again to where Erik sat. "That night... at the café. Were you... following us? Her?"

Slowly, Erik shook his head. After a moment, the Vicomte returned to watching the Egrots set up the table. He had accepted the answer. His face was pasty and his hair lank and stringy with sweat; were it not for the officer's uniform, he would have appeared every bit the drowned rat arriving at the portcullis in the cellars of the Opéra. Erik would never have believed he had this much fight left in him. Remembering that portcullis, he supposed he should have expected it.

"You asked why I'm here," the Vicomte said. Erik had to strain to make out the words. "It's... my duty."

Erik knew he should laugh, but he did not feel like it.

"Why... are _you_ here?" the Vicomte went on.

Erik was saved from having to answer by Madame Egrot announcing supper. He rose smoothly to his feet and helped Egrot to turn the Vicomte's mattress around so he could sit up against the wall. It must have jolted his side, but the Vicomte made no sound of protest.

They made a peculiar dinner party. With no lamps lit for fear of alerting snipers or looters, they sat around the old trunk in the dark, like gypsies clustered in a tent, yet the crisp linen of the tablecloth and the bright silverware upon it gave them the dignity of kings. The maid brought the same cold meat, bread and butter they had had earlier that day, but she had also found some cheese and apples and even chocolate, and had managed to make coffee. Erik could smell it brewing in the pot and the aroma was almost enough to drive the smell of death from the attic. Almost.

"Our last supper," said Egrot, raising his wineglass.

Erik looked up from his own glass, surprised at his gallows humour, but Egrot was apparently in earnest. "You are certain they will be back, Andersson."

"Quite." 'Andersson', Erik noted, not 'my friend'. He was annoyed that it should matter.

"And there are snipers outside."

"Most probably."

"Then the women will hide in the cellar, and we'll pile more furniture against the doors and windows," Egrot decided. "I'll keep those savages from my house as long as I can, Andersson. I will not sit in my corner and have them just walk in. I will not."

It was dawning on Erik what he was suggesting. "And then? You cannot be serious, Egrot. You have twenty rounds. Your heroic stand would not last five minutes."

"And then... what comes will come." Egrot downed the rest of his wine in a single, terrified gulp. Erik felt ill. He could not be proposing this.

"And you agree to this?" he demanded of Madame Egrot.

"Perhaps they will not return," she said, but it was a feeble lie that even she did not believe. "We are holding the town. There must be reinforcements coming."

Erik stared at her, then at her stubborn husband with his injured head, then at the Vicomte, who was clutching a piece of bread without eating it, and seemed scarcely to hear them. He could not believe it. They were all mad. If possible, the Vicomte seemed even paler now, and his fresh bandage had grown a dark stain in the centre.

"For God's sake, give him some water." Erik's mouth refused to move. The mask was pressing on his jaw, making it difficult to speak. "He has lost a lot of blood."

The Vicomte winced to hear his weakness exposed, but he clutched at the offered glass and drank like a tippler kept for days without his wine. His dirty throat opened and closed around the water. Madame Egrot poured some more.

"If you wish to leave now," Egrot said to Erik, "if you know a way, that is... I shall not stop you."

"If I wished to leave, Egrot, you _couldn't_ stop me. Pass me that gun. I am going out."

"What? Where?"

"To rob the dead, just as the Vicomte suggested." He rose to his feet. After a moment, Madame Egrot reached for the rifle; he took it from her pale, reluctant hands.

The Vicomte spoke up. "I did not suggest... you do it. I will go."

"Oh, be quiet!" Erik snapped, shouldering the rifle. "Don't pretend to fear my death, Vicomte. It is laughable."

"I do not fear... your death! I fear..." He hesitated, and Erik knew he loathed being forced to say it. "My own."

For a poisonous moment, Erik allowed himself to feel the full blast of triumph. He understood what the Vicomte feared. The Phantom would abandon him here to his fate with the Egrots, with no ammunition, with nothing but the slim hope of being passed over when the battle resumed. The Vicomte would rather face the dangers outside or bleed to death in the effort, than wait for death to come and claim him. He was actually begging him to come back. It felt so right, so – perfect, to have his former enemy in his power...

But it was not right at all. It was ugly and pathetic to be begged for anything by a man who had crawled from the cellar to the attic with a chunk of flesh torn from his hip, and who even now refused to faint.

"You underestimate me, Vicomte," Erik said. "I will return."

He left them staring after him as he descended into the depths of the house. On the stairs, the maid fluttered to the banister and clung there like a grey moth, watching him pass. Erik doubted the girl could see anything but a thicker darkness where he moved and the sharp contour of his rifle, but she stayed on the stairs all the same, watching, as if she too thought he was running away.

Dread trailed after him with the weight of her stare. She had no idea what he was capable of, Erik thought. None of them had the slightest idea what they were making him do.

The kitchen window was barricaded with boxes stacked high against it, and a cupboard blocked the door. Erik put his shoulder to it and shoved it aside. It scraped hard on the floorboards and threatened to collapse on top of him, but gave way with relative ease. Had the Bavarians tried coming through here, this sorry barricade might have held them off for all of half a minute.

Here was the door. Erik closed his eyes for a moment and took a long breath. He could do what they all expected and run. Run to Paris, to Christine. It was more a wisp of instinct than a plan. His fingers itched with the desire to remove the dirty, useless mask, but that would be mere theatre. Could he have ripped the very face from his skull, it would have changed nothing. He was what he had always been. No man could run from that.

The door was noisier in opening than he would have believed possible. Erik waited, counting to fifty, to a hundred. Nothing stirred. Silently, he rigged the door to remain ajar and edged into the night-time garden. He worked the rope from the pocket where he had secreted it when he had first taken Egrot's gun. His hands remembered the knot. The wind must have changed; he could no longer smell the burning houses, and the wild fragrances of night flowers enveloped him completely. He flowed down the stairs into the garden. Not far from the porch, two guns lay in the wet grass where they had been abandoned; one a gleaming chassepôt, the other an older German needle gun. The bodies that should have held them were gone, taken away to be either healed or buried. A shoulder pack lay open nearby with its contents spilling out. A grey half-eaten biscuit, swollen with damp. A messtin.

Erik reached down for the strap of the nearest rifle. He would need ammunition to fit. A slick misshapen lump slid over the barrel and into the grass, swarming with black ants. Erik caught sight of a fingernail and a partly-severed tendon, and tugged the strap towards him sharply, dislodging the rest.

The tiny click of a rifle being cocked nearby was all he had needed to hear. The sniper never had time to move his hand on the trigger; in an instant Erik was upon him, a white ghost in his shirt and bandage flying through the night; and then there was a soundless death like the others before him. The Bavarian was a well-built man with hard shoulders and a stiff neck, but he fell as easily as any child. He was only one more.

Erik held the body close as he slipped the rope off, in a macabre embrace. This, too, his hands remembered. It was all curiously anticlimactic, almost mundane. The wool of the Bavarian's jacket was coarse and scratchy, there was a cigarette burn in the collar. Erik rolled up the rope. He had thought his hands might seize, that the same fingers that had caressed Christine's living body would refuse to work for this, that the rope might break and he would die pierced by a bullet like some miserable hero, like the Vicomte with his notions of honour. But nothing happened.

The night still smelled like flowers, the air moved past the open half of his face with gentle indifference. The Bavarian had carried ninety rounds. It was not enough.

o o o

Music poured forth from the instrument under her hands. It had a tone richer, lighter, purer than anything she could have accomplished with her own voice, but Christine did not begrudge it this clarity, nor was she jealous. It was only an instrument, a tool in her hands, mute without her. It was she who made it sing.

She searched for a conclusion to the first movement, one that would both speak of the past and whisper into the pause, making wordless, tender promises. There was some music that could soar in darkness and some that could draw the living soul from one's body, but the music she sought now would only hush and murmur like waves on the shore. The chords she tried were all too heavy and plain, too dismal; they conveyed the longings in her heart with the officious, formal certainty of doctors or priests. She tried again.

Something touched the back of her neck. She smiled slightly but continued playing, the notes flickering ever so little, like candlelight. She felt Erik draw aside the curtain of her hair. His fingers on her scalp were cool but his palms were very warm; Christine could picture the dark lines where his hands had lifted ink from his sketches. He traced the edge of her high collar, seeking to distract her. She hid her smile, and did not turn around.

"It will never work this way," he murmured, and Christine felt his breath in her ear. He brought her gathered curls a little way towards him, coaxing her back from the piano, creating a silence. "You need a modulation if you want that ending. C minor."

She leaned back into his hand. "Too melodramatic."

"It was good enough for Beethoven."

"Don't be annoyed. I am no Beethoven."

He took one of her hands and set it lightly to the piano, just touching the keys, showing her what he wanted. "No. You are Christine Daaé. One day they'll breathe your name as reverently as they now do Beethoven's."

Christine turned her hand palm up and Erik interlocked his fingers with hers. There was red chalk from the drawings under his short nails, and the line of his cuff fell back from his wrist, revealing the fine marbling of veins. Christine pulled him down to sit behind her, feeling his chest move against her back as she turned around.

"I don't need their admiration." She revelled in the way he tensed between reluctance and desire as she touched his bare forehead, his scars, his mouth. "I would hear you breathe my name, Erik. That's enough."

"Christine..."

He closed his eyes, as if in shame. And with that one gesture Christine suddenly _knew_ – she screamed as she saw the hanged corpse drop behind him, its swollen tongue and black neck and hands raised in a hideous plea, and Erik was gone and she thought she was still screaming when she jolted awake.

She sat up in her own bed, gasping. A dream.

It was morning. Her heart slowed reluctantly in the face of the familiar, quiet room and the rays of light from between the curtains. Shivering, Christine slipped from her bed and opened the window, checking outside with what had become a habit. Nobody on the balcony, nobody in the courtyard below. Strings of sunlight danced on the windowpane as she shut it. A dream, nothing more.

She clenched her hands on her night-dress, crushing fabric. Desire still trembled inside her, making her legs weak, making her relive every note and every caress even as she felt each one become tainted with the terror that had ended them. To want to touch him again was disgusting. To accept music from him, to long for his return, was worse – and that was no dream, that was only the truth. Should she tell herself again that it was the Angel who composed with her, the Phantom she feared, yet only Erik in her bed? Even the Devil of her childhood fears did not have so many names. She let go of the folds of her night-dress and saw red.

Blood. Swift fear brought dream to clash with reality, Christine whipped about to look at the bed, convinced the dream's shadow was real. She flung the covers aside.

"Oh," she said softly. She did not know what she had expected. Perhaps a corpse. She felt like an idiot. A female idiot who could not count.

She sighed and set to cleaning up. This was all she needed to make the morning complete. Next she would no doubt have to suffer through breakfast, with Meg and Madame Giry still barely on speaking terms, and then find that some new efforts at city fortifications would keep her omnibus route from taking her on her usual visit to her father's grave. With her luck they had probably closed off the cemetery altogether and she'd have to walk from where she usually left Meg at the artist's studio.

Her mood lifted a little when she finally made it to the dining-room and saw that Meg was alone, reading some booklet over her breakfast, and that Madame Giry was not yet there. It gave her a chance to eat and make herself scarce before she could be caught between them. She had slid into her chair before she noticed the basket of sweet almond rolls on the table.

"Good morning," Meg said, stifling a yawn. She put her reading aside and grinned. Christine had not expected to find her so cheerful. "You'll never guess what _maman_ did."

"Bought us treats?" Christine gestured at the pastries in astonishment. Madame Giry took a dim view of sweet sugary things, especially for breakfast.

"Actually, that was me," Meg confessed. "I thought as long as I'm in trouble, I may as well make the most of it. Help yourself."

"Meg! You'll get us both chained the barre for the next week at least."

Christine took a roll and flaked off a few almonds to let them dissolve in her mouth. "These are delicious; I'll have to go to the cemetery early, before your mother sees this outrage." More seriously, she added, "I really don't think you ought to provoke her. She has a right to be hurt by... what happened."

Meg wiped her hands clean, then stood to pick up a long paper tube that had been leaning against her chair. She held it by the edge to let it unroll.

"Take a look."

Christine studied the poster. It was old, but the colours were still vibrant and the ballet gala it advertised seemed to spring to life before her eyes. She recognised the signature in the corner: Jules Robuchon.

"There's twenty-six more."

Christine looked at her in disbelief. "You mother gave you these? This morning?"

Meg rolled up the poster slowly, with infinite gentleness. "I came back from the patisserie and there was a whole pile of these on my dresser. Don't look at me like that, nobody else comes into my room."

She caught herself almost before Christine could register what she had said – "Christine! Sorry, you know I didn't mean it badly."

Christine winced. "And then?"

"And then _maman_ came in and we talked for a while. About my father, and about art."

"She has forgiven you?"

Meg put the poster aside and took her seat again. "I don't know. I don't think she really likes it, anyway. She isn't like you and me, for her ballet is... Well, it just is. Like God. My father worshipped it, but with Monsieur de Gas, it is the other way around. It's his art, not _maman's_. But she knows that. At least we aren't fighting anymore."

Christine gave a slow nod. "I'm glad."

There didn't seem to be much else she could say. They ate their breakfast slowly, waiting for Madame Giry to join them. Looking at Meg's neatly rolled poster, Christine wondered if her own father would have done this, should she have rejected the music he so cherished and taken up another path. Thinking of him made her remember her music, and that brought her back to the idea she had almost forgotten.

"I'll be right back," she told Meg, "I'm just going to my room for a while."

She found her scribbles where she had stashed them the night before, leafed through them until she came to the very end. Here was the conclusion she had struggled with. She looked at it for a while, sighed, then pencilled in the transient key change, resolving into C minor. All right, she conceded. It did sound better.


	34. Fire and Brimstone

Many, many thanks to Waytoointoerik for helping me to upload this chapter. (For others in the same boat: apparently the trick is to export one of your other chapters into the document manager, replace the text, and then save it as the new chapter).

Guys, I know this is short, and I apologise for that, especially given my long absence, but it's a critical scene and deserves its own chapter. I wish I could promise that regular updates will follow, but I'm in the process of moving halfway around the world for a new and very demanding job, and as you can imagine, that doesn't leave much writing time. All I can promise is that I will try my best.

Please take a moment to send a review if you're still reading, it helps to know that there's still an audience out there!

**Trivia:** Cartridges for the Dreyse needle guns used by the Germans in this battle used a lead bullet in a paper wrapper. When fired, the wrapper burnt away.

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Fire and Brimstone

The sun had not yet risen when the first heavy boom of a German cannon shook the ground and the explosions – two, three, several at once – tore into the night. Then silence.

The Ghost looked up from the corpse half-hidden in the grass. He shuddered. The rumble had been distant enough that the front garden and the street before it remained perfectly still. Yet vibration too low for sound still lingered in the ground, crawled through the wet grass and twisted roots, echoed from wall to wall in the empty street. A cloud of dust hovered above the rooftops near the Balan road, where the shells had struck. Lazily, it dissolved into the dark-blue sky. The air grew still again, but there remained a tense, ringing quality to the silence, the expectation of another blow. In the east, pale frightened stars winked out one by one.

The Ghost glanced at the body before him. A familiar dread gathered in his stomach at the sight of the man's collapsed mouth and eyes, and the cooling skin that was already turning yellow and tight. What had he been a minute ago? Not a sniper... One of the wounded left for dead? Yes, that was it, the Ghost remembered in a rush; the Bavarian's uniform had been torn from shoulder to ribcage by a bayonet and blood had begun to congeal over the etched steel of the gun he had clutched. His every laboured breath had made his dying flesh twitch, clench, twitch again. The Bavarian had been dying, had been halfway gone before the Ghost had even reached for the rope – yet the moment it fell on his neck, he had raised a hand to his killer's mask in transfixed, cowardly gratitude, as though seeing the Angel of Death come to relieve his suffering. Unable to bear that look, the Ghost had summoned his clipped, operatic German and told him, "You are going to Hell!" The fool had died with open horror in his eyes then, just like all the others before him. He had fine hands, the Ghost noticed now, strong and slender as a musician's. In its own way that was worse than the blood.

The Ghost jerked his noose off the dead man's neck, exposing bone. "_Gott_," he swore in the same false German, as if the corpse might hear him still; then added even more theatrically: "_Tut mir Leid_." _I'm sorry_. But it was a sham; the sorrow he voiced was as false as his mask, and gave no comfort. Indeed, he was not at all sorry. He was not anything; he was merely a Ghost sent to kill. Ghosts, angels, murderers – all had this in common: they existed only to fulfill their missions, and beyond that they had nothing. No future, no life.

The rope was damp and heavy with blood, hopelessly ruined. The Ghost let it drop into the grass – and in that moment two shells made whistling arcs in the sky.

The blasts did not take him by surprise, but they left him half-deaf and trembling, stunned by the fury of sound, the way it punched straight through the air. He scrambled to his feet gracelessly, clumsily, all at once a frightened man rather than ghost. He had to get back, now. The ammunition the Bavarian had carried was pitiful: three rounds, scarcely worth the delay.

The past few hours were a blur, an endless rehearsal of the same scene: quick flight from street to narrow street, a brief struggle, then the expected, predictable cessation of movement. Between these, nothing, a void. Each time he had thought it was the last, there had been another and another, not snipers for the most part but stragglers, deserters, the wounded whose injuries made them moan or sob like children after a beating. Each body had to be searched for ammunition. That was a revolting task fit only for vultures, but the Ghost had performed it all the same. From a sense of _duty_, he thought angrily, flinging the phrase as an insult through the barricaded streets towards the Vicomte, the wounded hero, as if to say, Do you see? A murderer has his duty too. I have not forgotten my part.

The battle was starting again. From the direction of the park came the agitated shouts of French soldiers, and all along the street windowpanes creaked and slammed open as householders scanned the horizon for the source of the falling shells. The Ghost could have informed them it was the batteries on the plateaus to the north, near La Moncelle and Daigny, the very ones he had observed the previous day. Another shell exploded further away, raising dust. It was dawning on him that despite the dreadful noise, none of the shells struck Bazeilles. He was still out of range. Out of range, for now. The Ghost did not look towards Sedan, where the courthouse was, but ran, stumbled, cursed, ran faster.

Not fast enough. When he reached the river, he saw a commotion; the sloshing of pontoon bridges was suddenly obscured by muffled echoing gunshots, then a roar of men lurched forward in a great flood: the assault was repulsed, but only just. The Bavarians were back.

Which way? He ran into the maze of dead dark streets. There was no possibility of taking the Sedan road directly, for the rifle fire was rapidly moving from the river deeper into the village, and the streets he had come by had been barricaded in the night. He was forced to zigzag between houses that at another time had been familiar, but which now rattled with the din like scenery being moved, blank façades appearing and vanishing in the thick pall of dust that hung in the air.

Screaming, indeterminate shapes thundered into the street in the half-light, accompanied by hoofbeats and the snorting of horses. The Ghost flattened himself against a garden wall. He could not make sense of the human limbs and pikes and feathers and helmets that passed him and swallowed the entire street; he could no longer distinguish uniforms or guns. As the distant roar of artillery was joined by the sputtering of grapeshot, he swallowed constricted lungfuls of smoke and sulfurous dust that blurred his eyes.

He had expected the smoke to clear, but instead it grew thicker, and a moment later he understood why: a house on the corner of the street was burning, the flames near-invisible against the eastern horizon. Fire, fire again! Clutching the sack of ammunition to his chest, terrified of being cornered by the flames, he ducked into a narrow side lane bounded by high windowless walls. Here was less smoke, but no less noise. Shells still rained outside the town, but the more immediate threat was the rapid fusillade in the cobbled street ahead. There was the Sedan road, and Erik thought with growing dread that he must cross it to reach Egrot's house, and that he could not do it alive.

He watched from the precarious safety of the dark mouth of the lane as French soldiers, desperate, fell back and back before the relentless onslaught, fighting all the way, but losing more and more ground. Then, before he could quite grasp it, a strange thing happened. The French line parted neatly aside and there – through the sudden gap – burst forth a wall of noise so sharp that the Ghost felt himself cry out in agony, but heard nothing save that rattle of fire.

Stunned, he thought he understood. The Germans had fallen into a trap, lured within range of one of the French _mitrailleuses_, machine guns. Now men were screaming, some in victory and some in death, while a forest of bayonets rose up to pursue those who still remained standing, each individual blade catching the sharp, lethal glint of morning.

What came next was slaughter such as the Ghost had never imagined.

Creeping up as close to the corner as he dared, he followed it, avid as a sideshow spectator – bayonets slicing human flesh, men stepping into the open sticky abdomens of their fallen comrades, the ripe stench of loosened bowels – and all the while more Bavarian ranks were advancing from the river, crushing the dead beneath them, an endless grinding tide that rose and grew and spilled out of the opaque white mist on the river. Those Bavarians who had witnessed the slaughter of their fellows seemed to turn to stone momentarily, and then their fury spread and rippled beneath the plumes of their helmets, growing dangerously, oh so dangerously, into a thirst for revenge. French soldiers tried to push harder, but too many had already fallen by the roadside, and there were no more ranks behind them, no swelling tide of their own to withstand the many, many Bavarians pouring in.

The horror and beauty of it knocked the wind from the Ghost's lungs, and he watched the dead mount before him with no more thoughts of reaching the other side of the street, that house where a handful of men just like these waited for the ammunition he carried. After all, what made them so different? These ones falling dead in the street, still holding their own murder weapons, were no less deserving than Egrot and the Vicomte...

He hit the ground a moment before the gunshot tore through the air where he had stood. More shots followed behind.

There was no time to waste. He left the lane and plummetted head-first into the mêlée of the battle in the main street, amid blue-clad soldiers aiming rifles, uniforms with plumed helmets, the wounded, bayonets, the buzz of bullets. A door up ahead gave way, and he realised they were storming a house. Soldiers burst in, splintering the door-frame in their haste, where a woman, young and drab, her hair whipping like a blonde sheet in the breeze, screeched something about a child inside, her child. A spray of blood hit the inside of an upstairs window a second before the glass disintegrated under a bullet, and a soldier's torso fell out. He hung from the windowsill with his arms spread wide, like an upturned crucifix or a carpet left out to dry.

One of the soldiers below gave a terrible cry and would have rushed forward had his fellows not kept him back. There was more fighting within; the Ghost watched it with an abstracted fascination, as though it no longer concerned him.

When it was over, one of the Bavarians dragged the woman who had screamed into the house, crushing her wrist in a way that made the Ghost remember exactly what it felt like to hold that fragile bone in his hand and let his hatred crush it, crunch it, feel her bright agony as an exact mirror of his own. He was not surprised when the Bavarian emerged clutching a pile of drapes torn from the window, nor when he lit the dry fabric and demanded by gesture and force that the woman toss it inside. When she would not, he threw her off and did it himself, and a minute later the house was afire.

The Ghost stood quite still as the battle flowed about him, momentarily blinded to the prospect of his own death by the spectacle of that burning house. Fire ran from the remaining drape on the window to the upholstered furniture, distorted and twisted behind the window glass. Soon the wooden pane and then the shutters were burning too, and the heat seared the sweat from his face and his chest.

This was not Hell. This was real: the end of all nightmares, every secret wish of revenge on the world torn from the Phantom's mind. The world was consuming itself before his eyes in a tremendous conflagration of ashes and death, and the distant booming explosions spoke of the same thing happening in every village, every town, every city to the ends of the Earth.

The Ghost watched the destruction with a fierce, monumental triumph – but within him, a broken little monster whimpered like a cur behind the walls of the Opera's little chapel, and prayed silently that someone might hear, that someone there, in the chapel, would turn away from the candlelight to whisper, "Don't cry. Please don't cry."

But nobody heard.

The battle spread from house to house, pulling with it a sheet of fire that caught at doors and billowed in hot gasps out of broken windows, turning what had been a street into a glowing inferno. When at last the sun rose into a blood-red circle behind the smoke, new Prussian artillery boomed its crescendo from across the river, and the ground itself shook and splintered under this new assault. The Ghost had found cover beneath a half-collapsed building; beyond that grey stone space and bitter choking smoke, with his hands clutching at the grass, he knew nothing at all.

Later, he thought it could not have lasted long. Several hours, that was all; it was scarcely late afternoon when the guns had finally died away. Some of the fires still burned red-hot, but their crackle served only to outline the shape of the silence, the vast emptiness, and at length even the sound of boots on the paving stones disappeared. All that remained was the hot smoke of guns and the foulness of fresh murder.

He emerged into what had been the Sedan road. It was now a corridor of broken paving stones carved between smouldering, eyeless buildings, littered with the dead. There was a gap of silence in his mind; no music, no requiem, no _Totentanz_ playing for these remnants of the living. He felt vaguely drunk, and could not be sure that he did not sway as he walked.

Along the street, doors stood wide open in a parody of welcome. Here and there, groups of people, neighbours, friends, milled in the middle of the crossroads, blinking confusedly in the smoky afternoon sun. Some clutched bundles of possessions, uncertain now why they had thought to take this old clock or that cracked mirror, or what they would do with these things. A young girl, standing alone before the entrance to what had been a milliner's shop, held a cage with a songbird. The cage door was open, but the bird lay inside, its small eyes fogged by a grey membrane, its feet clenched. The girl hugged the cage close and did not seem to notice. She followed Erik with her eyes as he passed, lethargically and without true curiosity, and he thought suddenly of the children playing in the dirt of the construction site in Sedan before he had frightened them away.

His construction site... He raised his sleeve to wipe away the sticky grime from his neck, and found he still carried the sack of pilfered ammunition, although he had lost the German rifle somewhere along the way. His construction site...

He raised his eyes towards Sedan, and in the brilliant afternoon sunlight he thought he saw a tiny white dot, sailing like a kite above the fortress. He looked at it for a while, until he was certain. It was a flag.

A tap on the arm made him turn around.

"I'm hungry," the little girl with the birdcage informed him. She set the birdcage down at her feet, ever so carefully, and waited.

Erik hesitated, then dipped into the sack he carried, and brought out a handful of powder charges, wrapped like sweets. The girl studied these, then held out her two cupped hands and permitted Erik to pour the pretend sweets into them. She stood there a moment longer, then deposited the cartridges in her pockets and picked up the cage. Erik watched her stumble back over the rubble.

With a swift, violent spin, he kicked the sack, and the rest of the now-useless cartridges went rolling and bouncing over the cobbles. He ran all the way to the Egrots' house, but he could not outrun his shame, and he knew before he arrived what he would find there.

The house stood as it always had, with the geraniums fresh in the window-boxes, and the two surviving windows clean and sparkling in the sun. The front door hung open. Inside, beyond the pock-marked walls and fallen plaster, all was black.


End file.
